David Farrar: The massive beat up by Radio NZ

Radio NZ reports:

Doctors at Hutt Hospital are being asked to make beds and clean medical equipment, on top of a busy patient workload.

An email sent to all ED staff and seen by RNZ lays out which cleaning tasks are expected of clinical staff, and which are to be done by cleaners.

Clinical staff are expected to clean, among other things, commodes, hoists and patient washbowls, as well as beds, lockers, soap dispensers, sluice sinks and biohazard bags.

Now the clear implication of the story is that this was something that has just been ordered, presumably because the nasty new Government is cutting funding (in reality it has increased it by more than Labour planned to).

Here’s the reality, provided by Health NZ in a statement:

• There has been no change to the Hutt ED cleaning arrangements or funding
• The practice of clinical staff cleaning certain items and areas has been in place for around 30 years (as confirmed by Hutt’s Head of In-House Services, who has held the role in various forms throughout that time)
• While HCAs generally do most of this work, and then nurses, there has always been the expectation that doctors help where they can
• Where a printer or photocopier malfunctions, an automated message goes to Ricoh and a technician is sent as soon as possible (usually immediately) to repair it – we have no idea why a doctor would have taken it upon themselves to do it
• In terms of a patient trying to get out of bed unassisted, it may have been that they tried to do this themselves without requesting assistance just as the doctor was passing – however we are not aware of this particular instance
• The expectation in busy EDs, including Hutt, is that everyone pulls together where needed – and we would point out that there have been many occasions where cleaners have actually performed tasks that they are not expected to (such as making beds) to help out when ED has been particularly busy.

Radio NZ have now updated the story somewhat but hundreds of thousands of people would have been left with the impression that what was reported was something new, rather than standard practice of the last 30 years.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.