KINDNESS IS EASY TO SAY BUT HARD TO DO SARAH DALTON | ASMS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
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am writing this in the last week of August – a huge week by any measure. We met with our branch officers for our annual workshop, in a mixed medium webinar. It was held as Auckland continued under Level 3 lockdown and Christchurch found some closure in the sentencing of the terrorist responsible for the mosque shootings. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the terrible loss of so many lives at the Linwood and Al Noor mosques – including one of our people, Dr Amjad Hamid – and the efforts of our friends and colleagues at Canterbury DHB who worked so tirelessly in the service of those injured in the attacks.
It is galling that so many of those people who have sowed the seeds of kindness in Christchurch are reaping a very different outcome from the one they deserve.
It makes me think about what being kind really looks like. As a team of five million we grieved with the families of those caught up in the mosque attacks. Now we are trying to remember to be kind as we navigate the restrictions and frustrations of the various Covid-19 lockdown levels as weeks and months go by with closed borders, limited travel, and tired hospital and community buildings that make infection prevention and control so challenging, not to mention the massive social and economic pressures on many of our communities.
the next DHB, and the next, will not have to pay the heavy price of losing an entire leadership team? Here is some of what I think.
Canterbury DHB. We may not always have agreed with each other, and at times we have shared difficult conversations. But we have never stopped the conversation.
• Innovating for integrated and timely patient care is not cheap and costs money up front – it is an investment.
We must only hope that those tasked with governance in the future learn better than the current Board, Chair, and Crown Monitor, who seem to have abandoned kindness, and whose eyes and ears are closed to the most important part of our health system – our people.
• Sometimes longer-term benefits and savings do not show up on the balance sheets. • People are the most important thing about our health system, and we forget this at our peril. • Political cycles are not very compatible with long-term planning for best patient care. Wouldn’t it be great if we could agree some fundamentals and be given time to put them in place?
People are the most important thing about our health system, and we forget this at our peril.
• Closed-door decision-making is unacceptable. • Clinical good practice needs to drive the work of the planners and funders. Remember that doctors have obligations that are wider and deeper than those of employees to employers. • Being kind is easy to say and hard to do. It is galling that so many of those people who have sowed the seeds of kindness in Christchurch are reaping a very different outcome from the one they deserve. I want to acknowledge the service and leadership of those who are leaving
And to those of you tasked with leading from the centre, we will be holding you to account. Like our members, whose professional and ethical obligations require that they speak up on issues of patient safety, health decision-making, and access to care, we will continue to advocate for standards of health care that are sufficient, that are sustainable, and that are needed by our team of five million. He waka eke noa – te-na- koutou, te-nakoutou, te-na- ta-tau katoa.
But I cannot help but wonder where that sits in the minds of those charged with overseeing hospital planning and funding. Many of you will have been following the unravelling of Canterbury DHB over the last few weeks and will have seen many of our members passionately taking protest action to voice their concern about the future of health care in the region. And while money (or lack of it) is the subject of this cautionary tale, it’s the breakdown of key relationships, the adversarial and dictatorial approaches adopted by the DHB’s Board Chair and the Crown Monitor (both appointed on advice from the Ministry of Health) that are its theme. What can we learn? What crumbs can we pick up and scatter in the hopes that
Cartoon: Sharon Murdoch WWW.ASMS.ORG.NZ | THE SPECIALIST
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