There are huge areas of waste in healthcare. Trust me on that. Far too many people are also very very dumb. And lazy. Instead of educating them and demanding responsibility, we pander to them. Being grossly obese is no longer such a bad thing it seems.
I haven’t the space to rant about all the ‘Maori Health Care Provider’ scams across the country, nor ACC funding reiki healing & the like, nor the cost of enforcing ‘cultural safety’ BS in hospitals, nor so much more. But yes, we could deliver far more for far less if we were smart.
Peter, it might be time to take a proper look into the history of modern medicine. Medical regulation, education and licensing has been driven by billionaire philanthropists since the early 20th Century in the USA and the same model has been duplicated around the world. These same philanthropists also happen to be eugenicists. They also fund the “science.” This film is a good start. Let me know if you’d like more:
It's a theme echoed by RFK Jr. MAHA - Make America Healthy Again. Something we could do in NZ. Putting public funding into the importance that eating seasonally available food, which is plentiful when in season is a fundamental choice to all adults.
Having read your article I fully agree that the government is putting the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff instead of educating the people to eat healthy exercise and get enough sleep. With all the advertising advertising on TV and bill boards promoting junk food and Supermarket chains putting all the processed foods in places where shoppers can see them it is not surprising that there's so much obesity and diabetes and cancers along with all the behavioural problems caused by junk food.. I believe that the government should spend more on educating the public and ban the advertising of junk food on TV. If they did that they could in time spend less on fixing the problem before it occurred..
Rather disingenuous and callous to compare the choice to smoke and its health impacts with the many reasons someone may not be a “healthy” weight. I know plenty of people with a serious health condition, often mental conditions (which we all know are at the receiving end of even piss poorer health care than physical ailments in this country) who require life (or sanity) saving medicines that result in serious side effects including weight gain.
How do you propose preventing those poor folks from becoming “uncool”, shunned, ridiculed, abused etc. with the not-so-genius idea of “making fat uncool”?
Maybe Doctors could simply ask people ‘is there a good reason you are overweight’. If not, then tell them to stop shoving crap food in their gobs and go exercise.
Your point is valid, but it’s a very, very small group of folk who are porkers through no fault of their own.
I’m also pretty sure most people with so-called ‘mental health’ problems are just people who are not good at dealing with the normality of life. Being grossly overweight will only make their job harder.
Peter - the NZ system is disease management, not health focused at all. The fundamentals of healthy eating, lifestyle and education are missing. Throwing more money and drugs at it is Pharma driven as we know.
You want attention drawn to overweight? That would be fat-shaming, Peter. Worse still it would be racist (for obvious reasons).
Of course the Ministry of Health is about sickness. Like Orwell's Ministry of Peace (about war) and Ministry of Truth (about propaganda and lies) and Ministry of Plenty (about shortage). And, I fear, our own Ministry of Education (about 'dumbification')
Good points and well argued.
There are huge areas of waste in healthcare. Trust me on that. Far too many people are also very very dumb. And lazy. Instead of educating them and demanding responsibility, we pander to them. Being grossly obese is no longer such a bad thing it seems.
I haven’t the space to rant about all the ‘Maori Health Care Provider’ scams across the country, nor ACC funding reiki healing & the like, nor the cost of enforcing ‘cultural safety’ BS in hospitals, nor so much more. But yes, we could deliver far more for far less if we were smart.
Peter, it might be time to take a proper look into the history of modern medicine. Medical regulation, education and licensing has been driven by billionaire philanthropists since the early 20th Century in the USA and the same model has been duplicated around the world. These same philanthropists also happen to be eugenicists. They also fund the “science.” This film is a good start. Let me know if you’d like more:
https://odysee.com/@Test:66/HippocraticHypocrisyEdited:d
Well said Peter.
It's a theme echoed by RFK Jr. MAHA - Make America Healthy Again. Something we could do in NZ. Putting public funding into the importance that eating seasonally available food, which is plentiful when in season is a fundamental choice to all adults.
Having read your article I fully agree that the government is putting the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff instead of educating the people to eat healthy exercise and get enough sleep. With all the advertising advertising on TV and bill boards promoting junk food and Supermarket chains putting all the processed foods in places where shoppers can see them it is not surprising that there's so much obesity and diabetes and cancers along with all the behavioural problems caused by junk food.. I believe that the government should spend more on educating the public and ban the advertising of junk food on TV. If they did that they could in time spend less on fixing the problem before it occurred..
Rather disingenuous and callous to compare the choice to smoke and its health impacts with the many reasons someone may not be a “healthy” weight. I know plenty of people with a serious health condition, often mental conditions (which we all know are at the receiving end of even piss poorer health care than physical ailments in this country) who require life (or sanity) saving medicines that result in serious side effects including weight gain.
How do you propose preventing those poor folks from becoming “uncool”, shunned, ridiculed, abused etc. with the not-so-genius idea of “making fat uncool”?
Maybe Doctors could simply ask people ‘is there a good reason you are overweight’. If not, then tell them to stop shoving crap food in their gobs and go exercise.
Your point is valid, but it’s a very, very small group of folk who are porkers through no fault of their own.
I’m also pretty sure most people with so-called ‘mental health’ problems are just people who are not good at dealing with the normality of life. Being grossly overweight will only make their job harder.
The Western Medical model operates largely along these lines. I reckon changing the name to Sickness NZ or Department of Sickness would be a start.
Peter - the NZ system is disease management, not health focused at all. The fundamentals of healthy eating, lifestyle and education are missing. Throwing more money and drugs at it is Pharma driven as we know.
Peter - the NZ system is about treatment of a problem rather than its prevention. I agree with you entirely.
You want attention drawn to overweight? That would be fat-shaming, Peter. Worse still it would be racist (for obvious reasons).
Of course the Ministry of Health is about sickness. Like Orwell's Ministry of Peace (about war) and Ministry of Truth (about propaganda and lies) and Ministry of Plenty (about shortage). And, I fear, our own Ministry of Education (about 'dumbification')