A friend got in touch last night with some significant news that the Ministry of Health (MOH) had once again botched it’s euthanasia numbers.
The reporting failure is so bad, that the Ministry missed nearly half the number of people who died in one quarter. In another quarterly report, the Ministry managed to suggest that sixteen more people had their lives ended, when in fact they were alive.
It does not give me much confidence in the Ministry when it cannot even work out who has been terminated and who has not. Euthanasia is literally a life and death issue. I remain very aware there are a range of views on euthanasia and as I wrote late last year, the continuing failures in the new law should be a cause of great concern to everyone. It is simply no longer possible to say the system is safe when the Ministry of Health - the very agency responsible for managing the application of the law - cannot even get it’s basic numbers correct.
Specifically, the Ministry has recently updated two quarterly reports from 2024. In the original report for 1 July 2024 to 30 September 2024 the number of deaths was put at 73. Then, remarkably the same report was updated to say the number was actually 129. That’s an increase of 77%, or 56 people!
The original quarterly report for April to June 2024 originally stated there were 126 deaths, but has then been changed to say ‘only’ 108. Sixteen supposedly dead, were clearly not.
Importantly, this is not the first failure around numbers. I shared the news last year that the numbers reported in the quarterly reports did not match the numbers in the annual report:
Alarm bells
Simon O'Connor
·10 September 2024
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As then, with now, the repeated failures to accurately report the numbers is an indication that the system is failing. By definition, reporting is always downstream from whatever is happening. If the reported numbers are wrong, there must be more going wrong within the system.
Euthanasia practice in New Zealand is not safe - and cannot be safe - if this very simple reporting metric is often wrong.
I am very grateful to friends who love data. They keep noting how the Ministry goes about updating it’s reports yet does not seek to draw any attention to the changes. There is no transparency or accountability with such updates; the only indication that something has changed is a note on the report’s landing page talking about ‘validation errors’. You have read that right, the Ministry of Health thinks missing fifty six (56) deaths by euthanasia is a ‘validation error’. To work out what has changed, we need to constantly revisit the report and compare the most recent to earlier saved versions of the same report. I do not think it unfair to suggest that the Ministry simply hopes no one will notice; but we do.
If we were talking about the numbers of surgical gowns or toothbrushes, then the seriousness of getting the numbers wrong is not materially significant. But here, when talking about euthanasia, we are literally talking about New Zealanders living and dying. One error is a tragedy, not an accounting mistake.
The Ministry recently undertook the legally required review of the euthanasia law after three years of operation. This was published in November last year and put succinctly, suggests everything is running smoothly and recommends expanding the scheme in various ways.
It is no longer feasible to support these conclusions with the growing evidence of problems. Nor is it possible to have any confidence in the Ministry to review itself as the administrator of the End of Life Choice Act.
While myself and other opponents of euthanasia have concerns that the report is simply the work of those committed ideologically to the expansion of euthanasia, I also cannot see how a report can be relied upon when written by the same people who cannot add up numbers correctly. Furthermore, to write that “the final report notes where things are working well …” is demonstrably false. As I continue to stress - if the numbers are consistently wrong, then there must be other failures within the system as reporting is always downstream from the real problems. We know of some of these, and you can read of some of them below:
What on earth is going on?
Simon O'Connor
·9 October 2024
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Whether you support the intention of the current law or want it repealed, there should be agreement that the current system is not operating safely. The government needs to step in immediately and set up an independent review of the operations of the law and of the Ministry’s handling of the situation, including it’s review of the law tabled last year. This ‘Review of the End of Life Choice Act 2019’ in particular can no longer be viewed with any confidence by the public.
Finally, I thought I would re-share the interview I did with Jack Tame on Q+A last year on these very matters. I felt the situation was bad then, but this latest news deepens my concerns.
Simon O'Connor a former National MP graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Political Studies . Simon blogs at On Point - where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
I voted NO in the referendum. Not because I'm against euthanasia per se, I'm all for it. I just think it's personal and government shouldn't be involved in such things if only because they can't do anything right. This example is perfect.
The stellar performance of the MOH over the last five years should surely reassure us all of their absolute integrity and reliability…surely?
The MOH is probably using the same single spreadsheet they used for the accounts with myriad individuals able to access and modify. The system does need to exhibit integrity. I support choice at the end of life and think it inappropriate to refer to it as euthanasia. I hope that by the time and if I need the service, it will be such that I can pull the plug myself, thereby taking the onus off someone else. However, should I be physically unable to do so I'd still want the plug pulled by some kind, caring soul.
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