Columns

Hi everybody,

An obvious issue with writing a health column for a student magazine is the fact that the target audience is young and healthy, dramatically limiting possible topic selection. It would be far easier to write for the ODT – their target audience seems to be around 80 years old, judging from their “get off my lawn and out of my city, you young whippersnapper” style of reporting. Luckily, this week’s theme – politics – is a subject that affects the healthy young and the decrepit old alike.

On the whole, New Zealand has it pretty sweet. Our healthcare system is, truly, one of the best in the world. That being said, our politicians still act like hookers in a centrifuge – they jerk us around a lot. The biggest problem we have is the National-Labour priority split. To simplify, National is all for cutting-edge technology and sexy specialists, whereas Labour is all for reducing poverty and improving healthcare access and shit.

Both are genuinely interested in keeping New Zealanders healthy, but they adopt divergent and conflicting approaches. National pours money into catching people as they fall; Labour pours money into preventing the fall from occurring. When power changes hands, funding priorities shift dramatically, and as a result initiatives begun by one parliament are left half-completed and proposed follow-up work never occurs. Consequently, things slip through the cracks and everybody loses.

Take doctor positions in New Zealand. Med student admission numbers were increased under the last Labour Government, but the Nats failed to follow through and increase the number of jobs at the other end. This year, a number of students graduated in New Zealand and yet failed to find work, despite the numbers being incredibly predictable. Next year will be even worse – we will need more positions for first- and second-year doctors. The current government, however, is taking a “we’ll scramble across that bridge when we come to it” approach, which – to borrow a phrase from next door – is just stupid, bitches.