Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Radio New Zealand

• 1145 reports submitted with 1247 “issues” identified
• Dose issues most common (25.93 percent), followed by quantities, missing details and inappropriate medications
• 26 percent of problems “high risk of harm” to patients
• Pharmacists spent 347 hours in total resolving problems
• Mean resolution time just under 19 minutes

More than one in four prescription errors picked up by pharmacists had a potentially serious risk of harm to patients, an audit has found.

In total, 68 pharmacies in the Midland Region took part in the week-long Script Audit – the first exploration of electronic scripts in New Zealand – using a purpose-built reporting app.

Midland Community Pharmacy Group chief executive Pete Chandler – who co-ordinated the audit and built the app for it using AI – said a major driver for the initiative was the tragic death of a two-month old baby in Manawatū earlier this year.

This came on top of long-standing concerns among pharmacists about system-wide clinical risk, he said.

“That was a wake up call for pharmacists around the country to the fact that if they miss something on the script, the consequences can be tragic.”

In Bellamere Duncan’s case it was an error at the pharmacy – but pharmacists say in most cases, they are the ones picking up problems.

During the week-long audit, pharmacists reported 1257 problems in prescriptions sent by GPs, specialists, midwives, dentists and other prescribers.

The most common related to inaccurate drug doses, followed by wrong quantities, missing details or patients prescribed “inappropriate” drugs, which could interfere with other medicines they were taking, for instance.

Most disturbingly, 26 percent of mistakes had a high risk of patient harm, if the pharmacist had not intervened.

The estimated rate of “interventions” varied widely between individual pharmacies, ranging from problems found in fewer than 1 percent of scripts to some identifying problems with 11.25 percent of total prescriptions sent to them.

The report noted the pharmacies with the highest intervention rates were known to the leadership teams of Bay of Plenty Community Pharmacy Group and MidCentral Community Pharmacy Group as “highly competent and thorough in clinical checking”, which suggested it could reflect more robust identification.

“Pharmacists have become the default safeguard against electronic deficiencies and other prescribing issues, yet this safeguard is neither resourced nor acknowledged in current funding or workforce planning. This is happening at a time when pharmacists should be contributing far

more to reducing hospital and primary care pressures.”

Chandler said whenever there was a problem with a script, pharmacists had to contact the prescriber involved and sort it out – and that could take minutes, hours or even days.

“You can see the minutes ticking away into hours while the pharmacist is waiting for a response.”

This could involve trying to track down a junior doctor who had now finished a hospital shift, or getting through to a busy GP.

“Some things are just irritating rather than being unsafe. So if your barcode won’t scan, it’s a pain and it wastes time. If a patient’s details don’t come through on a script, it needs chasing up.

“There are a range of issues that can happen, but this is time that we really need to use for something else.”

Invisible work of pharmacists not funded

A smaller survey of 20 pharmacists by the Pharmaceutical Society earlier this year found 45 percent were making up to five clinical interventions every day and 6 percent were making up to 40.

North Shore pharmacist Michael Hammond, president of the Pharmaceutical Society, said problems with scripts were annoying for everyone involved, including the patient having to wait for it to be sorted out.

“There are supply chain issues as well, so we’re having to have conversations with patients about why something is out of stock and then go to the prescriber and explain they need an alternative, or they can only dispense one month’s supply.

“So there’s a lot of unseen activity by pharmacists that needs to be recognised and funded appropriately.”

While electronic prescribing had fixed the historic problem of illegible handwriting, this audit revealed that technology had spawned a new set of problems.

The report on the audit found training, knowledge of drug changes and the inherent complexity of patient care remained contributing factors.

“However, the scale and pattern of findings indicate that IT system flaws do appear to be responsible for a substantial proportion of script issues increasing the workload and risk for both pharmacists and prescribers.”

Pete Chandler said it was frustrating for everyone involved.

“Often what the GP thinks they’ve asked for is not what the pharmacist sees. And pharmacists are obsessively diligent in their work, they’re very careful people, so they will do what it takes to sort it out.”

GPs also frustrated

The College of General Practitioners medical director, Dr Prabani Wood, said none of the software systems available were completely fit-for-purpose.

“There aren’t really those fail-safe mechanisms in our electronic health systems that stop you from making a crazy error by multiplying the number of tablets you’re asking for by a factor of 10 or 100. That still doesn’t happen.”

While Health NZ was working towards a shared digital health record, it was almost impossible for busy GPs to keep up with which medicines were currently funded by Pharmac or subject to supply problems, she said.

“I did a prescription last week for a person with ADHD and they are on a number of different medications and different doses, a couple of which were available at their normal pharmacy and one that isn’t. So it gets quite tricky.

“The system is not in place to help things run more smoothly. For me, I think having easier communication between general practice and pharmacy would help.”

The report itself concluded that many of the problems reported could be significantly reduced with co-ordinated action and “a willingness to address root causes rather than relying on workarounds”.

Promising micro-improvements were already emerging, including a dedicated text-only line for pharmacy prescription enquiries at one GP practice.

However, systemic improvement would require some national level, some regional level and some local level (i.e. local pharmacy and general practice) quality improvement, including working with IT providers to improve their systems.

“This small snapshot validates the significant concerns pharmacists across Aotearoa have been signalling for years – that script issues are increasing, clinical risk is rising and the system is not responding to make at the pace required.

“Doing nothing is no longer a defensible option.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand’s best-known opponent of letting cats wander where they please is thrilled the government has stopped “pussyfooting” around the issue.

Describing feral cats as “stone cold killers”, Conservation Minister Tama Potaka told RNZ on Thursday they would “join their buddies, stoats, ferrets, weasels – mustelids, rats and possums” on the official Predator Free 2050 hitlist.

“In order to boost biodiversity, to boost heritage landscape and to boost the type of place we want to see, we’ve got to get rid of some of these killers.”

The move comes two years after then-prime ministerial candidate Christopher Luxon promised they would be added, and 12 years after economist-turned politician Gareth Morgan controversially called for an end to all wandering cats – feral or domestic.

The ‘Cats to Go’ proposal was widely criticised at the time and was dismissed by many as being a bit extreme.

“The condemnation was absolutely universal,” Morgan told Morning Report on Friday.

“I went from, according to Reader’s Digest, the sixth-most trusted New Zealander that we had at the time because of my work on funds management, to the most-hated New Zealander, in a period of about six weeks – so it just showed you the intensity of the opposition.

“But I think people misunderstand the issue. The issue is not anti-cat. The issue is anti-wandering cats, and feral cats are a big part of that crime family.”

No one knows just how many feral cats there were in New Zealand. Estimates range from 2.5 million to 14 million.

Morgan said the government’s move was “better late than never”, but still did not go far enough.

“Cats wander to kill – they don’t wander for the exercise. So feral cats are just part of this greater crime family that’s out there killing New Zealand wildlife.

“Wandering cats are the issue. Feral cats are a subset of that. So the next step is to deal with domestic cats that are let out wandering.

“The only cat that should be protected is the cat in the lap, the one that you own, and the plea, I think, from rational people, is keep it to yourself.”

Morgan suggested previous prime ministers’ cat ownership – John Key’s Moonbeam and Jacinda Ardern’s ill-fated Paddles, for example – got in the way.

But he praised Key and the National-led government of the time for creating the predator-free goal in the first place, and for extending it to cover some cats.

“I think we can all be forgiven for being a bit ecstatic for achieving this step, even though it’s just one small step with respect to cats.”

He doubted however the hitlist would be extended to cover wandering domestic cats.

“Oh, no, it’ll be another 12 years of intensive lobbying because the opposition to this is entrenched.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police have arrested and charged a man with arson after a series of fires across Dunedin this week.

Police said the charges related to a deliberate fire at a vacant property on Lees Street at about 12.30am on Tuesday.

It was followed by a building fire on Harrow Street at about 11.30pm on Wednesday, and then a vegetation fire on Brighton Road at about 1.20am.

The 48-year old man appeared in Dunedin District Court yesterday charged with “wilfully setting fire to property knowing that danger to life was likely to ensue”, and was remanded in custody until his next appearance on 16 December.

Detective Senior Sergeant Nik Leigh said investigators were still looking into the circumstances around the fires.

“The arrest is a significant development for us; the investigation team has been chasing down a lot of leads but there’s still work for us to do.

“We’re grateful for those people who have provided information, but we still need to hear from anyone with information who has yet to reach out.”

Nobody was injured, but that didn’t make the fires any less serious, he said.

“Fire spreads incredibly quickly and it puts everyone at risk, from the public to emergency services.

“We treat these events seriously, and the arrest we’ve made in this case is a welcome development.”

Anyone with any useful information could update police online or by calling 105, with the reference number 251118/1721.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A building which ties up the hands of justice – that’s how many feel about Rotorua’s courthouse which has suffered years of delays to a slated redevelopment.

Rotorua District Court ranked the lowest in the nation for satisfaction with its facilities in this year’s Ministry of Justice Court User Survey.

Crown prosecutor Amanda Gordon said things started off badly for people as soon as they arrived at the courthouse.

Jurors, victims, defendants and witnesses must all go through a single entrance.

“Everyone has to individually go through security which takes an enormous amount of time, so on a day … where it’s pouring with rain, people are sometimes standing outside in the rain for two hours.”

Rotorua criminal lawyer Scott Mills pointed out the many problems with this arrangement.

“On Monday mornings the jury line stretches right back to the corner. There’s simply nowhere for people to go. Witnesses, defendants and complainants are shoulder-to-shoulder in the same waiting areas, fights have broken out more than once.”

It was no better once people got inside.

“It just doesn’t meet standards, for example if you have a disabled defendant they can’t get to the cells – the stair access is really steep and narrow – so there’s no way people with mobility issues can be placed in the cells when they potentially should be,” said Gordon.

Because a new building kept being promised, Gordon said no one would spend money on proper fixes or upgrades.

It was so bad the lawyers bought in audio equipment themselves just so jurors could hear video evidence properly.

“The court system and the police system don’t work together very well, so the DVDs we provide the court, they can’t turn the volume up so the jury can’t hear what the witness is saying,” she said.

She said Rotorua should have another judge to cope with the level of cases, but there’s nowhere to put a judge and nowhere they could hear cases.

Gordon said this meant judges were bailing people who they might otherwise not, and people were waiting years to get justice.

“Some decisions that judges are making are becoming entirely focused on the fact that someone might have to spend three years in custody before they get a trial and that that’s not ok, and it’s definitely not ok,” she said.

“It’s a democratic right that people get tried in front of a jury of their peers and our courthouse doesn’t serve any of the participants.”

Victim advocate Louise Nicholas supported people going through the court in Rotorua and said it was not a pleasant place.

“I’m sitting there supporting a survivor and I’m having to kill cockroaches, and you are sitting in the courtroom and you look on the wall and there’s a cockroach running up the wall,” she said.

Nicholas said when vulnerable victims were facing an intense and anxious time, they were put into a hot room to give evidence via CCTV, with distracting noises just on the other side of the door.

“When you’ve got people walking up and down a corridor, they are loud, we’re having to stop – we’ve had judges actually bring out the registrar and say, ‘remove yourself, we are actually in trial here’,” she said.

She thought it was time to get a new courthouse building up and running.

“Justice really isn’t getting served here, because of that building,” she said.

Courts Minister Nicole McKee said she was well aware of the challenges at the Rotorua courthouse and the Ministry of Justice was developing plans for a future rebuild to ensure Rotorua had a modern, fit-for-purpose courthouse.

“Across the country, we are progressing upgrades and new builds for a number of courthouses. However, financial constraints mean we cannot do every project at once.

“In Rotorua, the ministry has already purchased land for a proposed new courthouse and is working with the local council to secure resource consent in early 2026. This will allow the ministry to move quickly once funding is available.”

But there was no money for it in Budget 25, despite land already being purchased and ministerial support for a property partnership project to build and maintain a new courthouse being signalled to investors at the NZ Infrastructure Investment Summit in March this year.

McKee said Rotorua was only one of several courthouses nationally that needed attention and emphasis had gone to courts in Auckland.

“Rotorua is on the list… it’s very, very much on our radar,” she said.

RNZ asked if working with cockroaches climbing up the walls was ok but McKee said those claims were unsubstantiated.

“That’s the first I’ve heard about it, is from you, however, I’ve lived in Rotorua, there’s cockroaches everywhere,” she said.

Mayor of Rotorua, Tania Tapsell said the community had waited too long for what was considered by many an urgent and necessary investment in a new courthouse.

“Rotorua is one of the busiest regional courts in the country and handles complex cases from a large wider region, we need to be showing that we take our justice facilities seriously and now is the time for the government to action that,” she said.

McKee said the government did want to do better for Rotorua and get it a new courthouse.

But critics said everyone was still waiting for the money to make it happen.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Far North charity is revisiting a world record it smashed 10 years ago with another attempt to turn a town bald.

On 20 November 2015, a total of 462 people had their heads shaved during a Bald Angels Charitable Trust fundraising event in Kerikeri.

The feat was later recognised by Guinness World Records as the greatest number of heads shaved in one hour.

So many people went bald at once – everyone from former MP Kelvin Davis and Rugby Sevens legend Eric Rush to police officers and schoolchildren – visitors to Kerikeri in the following weeks wondered if some strange illness was sweeping the town.

Bald Angels founder Therese Wickbom said that record would be remembered with another mass head shave this weekend.

Money raised would help fill kai boxes the charity planned to give to 400 families this Christmas, and buy presents for up to 1600 children.

If more money was raised than needed, any leftover funds would go to other projects helping vulnerable tamariki (children) thrive, she said.

Wickbom did not expect to set a new record, with about 50 people signed up so far.

“But we hold the record now, and no one’s beaten it. No one’s going to beat that,” she said.

What she did hope to replicate from the 2015 event was the atmosphere.

“The thing that everyone remembers about that day 10 years ago was the sheer number of people and the wairua or the goodness in the room. It was palpable and it was so unifying,” she said.

“We’d love to recreate that again, and I don’t think we need 3000 people there to do that. I think we could do it with 100 or so people.”

Among those sacrificing their locks on Saturday, will be Forest and Bird’s Northland conservation advocate Dean Baigent-Mercer.

It would be a big change for Baigent-Mercer, who had been growing his dreadlocks for 20 years and was once described as “David Attenborough with dreads and attitude”.

Baigent-Mercer said he was taking part because even the most basic needs of many young Northlanders were not being met.

He hoped the money raised would help children who in later life would have to deal with difficult problems such as climate change and forest collapse.

“We need to look after the next generation so they can deal with the stuff they end up inheriting,” he said.

Wickbom said this weekend’s Shave 4 Kids Anniversary Challenge aimed to raise at least $40,000, with $24,000 already in the bag.

The 2015 head-shave raised $62,000 but Wickbom said times were tougher now.

The event would take place from 2-5pm on Saturday, 22 November, at the Turner Centre on Cobham Road, after the Kerikeri Half Marathon.

Entry was free, Wickbom said.

“But we would like people to koha, because this is about raising funds for vulnerable children.”

Anyone who wanted to take part in the mass head shave could register on the website or on the day.

Wickbom said the 2015 world record head shave was not only a great unifying event, it also left a visible mark on the town with almost 500 people losing their hair in the space of an hour.

Puzzled patrons at restaurant she owned at the time would approach her in a whisper and ask what was going on in Kerikeri, she said.

The Bald Angels’ kai boxes and Christmas gifts will be distributed to families selected by the charity’s partner agencies.

Those agencies included iwi social services, health providers, schools, Hospice, Plunket, Women’s Refuge and police.

The Bald Angels’ first mass head shave in 2012 raised $45,000 for children in the care of Hospice Mid Northland.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Canterbury landlord sanctioned for failing to clean up and fix a boarding house would rather cop a fine than pay for maintenance costs, a neighbour says.

Murray Lawrence Hill, who had been warned multiple times that his property was not up to standard, has been ordered to pay $33,000, remove industrial rubbish and repair holes in the roof and walls of a boarding house in Lyttelton.

The Tenancy Tribunal took action against Hill, who had a long history of complaints, for failing to ensure his property was compliant.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team (TCIT) received a complaint from a member of the public in December 2023, who said the boarding house was in a serious state of disrepair, with rubbish rotting on the property.

Alongside the rubbish removal and hole repairs, Hill was required to install glass planes in windows that were boarded up, install mechanical ventilation in the bathrooms and clean the kitchen and bathrooms to an acceptable standard.

The tenants were described as vulnerable and afraid to complain, for fear of being evicted.

David Wilcox lived opposite the Cressy Terrace property and said Hill had converted it into a halfway home for paroled prisoners following the earthquakes.

Wilcox said the landlord was the type of person who considered property maintenance as an unnecessary business expense.

“It’s a waste of money to him,” he said.

“I mean, his tenants can’t complain. So he just takes the money and banks it and forgets about this kind of stuff.

“He’s just not the kind of guy that really wants to do the right thing. He just wants to bank his money.”

Wilcox said a $33,000 fine would be of little consequence to Hill, who he understood to have an extensive property portfolio.

“He’s probably a multi-millionaire, so it’s not going to really harm him.

“I think they need to have, not just the fine, but they need to have people come in and supervise, make sure it gets done, because he won’t do it.”

Although Wilcox agreed Hill was more “slumlord” than landlord, he said the boarding house was better for tenants who had no alternatives.

“Would we rather have them in here under some kind of control and management, or would you rather just have them in a tent somewhere in the central city.

“So I think anybody with that choice, they’d rather be here.”

A woman who lived on Cressy Terrace told RNZ it was good the tenants had somewhere to live, but objected to the conditions they were subjected to.

When RNZ phoned Hill for comment, he swore at the reporter before asserting “at least they’re in a house”.

“They’re warm, they’ve got water, they’ve got hot water, they’ve got showers, they’ve got somewhere to cook. They’re not sleeping under a bridge, or shop doorways.”

He then ended the call.

TCIT national manager Brett Wilson said Hill had previously been issued warnings for the property.

“Despite receiving multiple warnings over a number of years, he failed to take meaningful steps to address these concerns until 2024/2025. His prolonged inaction over a four-year period demonstrates a deliberate and intentional disregard for his obligations.”

His failure to maintain the property to the required standard despite multiple warnings, had a direct and harmful impact on his tenants.

Wilson said landlords were running a business and if they wanted to operate a boarding house they must comply with their obligations under the Residential Tenancies Act.

He said Hill was an experienced landlord who had regular interactions with Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team, Fire and Emergency New Zealand and the Christchurch City Council, and was aware of his obligations under the Residential Tenancies Act.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand