Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Radio New Zealand

Care facilities have switched back to a paper-based system to manage medication, and are dishing it out by hand, while prescription portal MediMap is offline following a hack.

MediMap is used by some health providers in the aged care, disability and hospice sectors and the community to record medication doses and coordinate with pharmacies – and it includes people’s medication histories.

It was breached on Sunday, and the company has now taken the platform offline while it investigates.

According to information sent by MediMap to care providers in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and seen by RNZ, fields that were changed included patient name, date of birth, location within the facility, assigned prescriber or pharmacy, allergy or intolerance information or discharge or deceased status.

Providers with the portal offline have told RNZ medication was now being organised the old-fashioned way – on paper.

A Nurses Organisation member at George Manning Lifecare and Village in Christchurch told RNZ they needed double the number of registered nurses on each shift just to give out medication.

Aged Care Association chief executive Tracey Martin said every care home had a “disaster” plan to fall back on in case of something like a system outage.

“Basically, they had to switch back to paper-based.”

She understood it was not having an effect on residents, who were all still receiving medication, but some facilities might have needed to bring in extra staff who were qualified to double check the medication, before it was given to residents.

“It certainly takes longer, it’s certainly more painful than the efficiencies that you get through a digital system,” Martin said.

Most of the questions being asked were: “Is my mum still getting her medication?” and “How are you making sure that she gets what she needs?”

“With regard to somebody being marked as deceased or not? Well, our facilities have got the person there, so they know they’re not deceased. So while from a system perspective that is really interesting and needs to be sorted, from a real-life perspective, that individual’s still there, still being cared for.”

FAQs released by MediMap

Among the information sent from MediMap care providers were lists of frequently asked questions those companies might be getting, and how to respond to them, along with a draft email providers could use as a template to inform patients, residents and families.

MediMap said it was working with external cyber security and forensic specialists, Health NZ, and relevant authorities to identify which facilities and resident records had been affected, and passwords were being reset across all users “as a precautionary measure”.

“Importantly, we have been advised that there is currently no evidence that medication charts or medication administration records have been altered,” it said.

“Has resident data been exposed? – At this stage, we cannot confirm whether any resident data has been accessed beyond viewing, extracted, or exposed externally. The investigation is ongoing.”

“When will our facility be brought back online? – Facilities will be restored in phases. Facilities where current resident information has not been modified will be restored first following internal validation. Facilities where resident information may have been impacted will be contacted directly by MediMap to confirm current resident details prior to restoration.”

“Why are discharged or deceased residents being reviewed? – Some resident status information may have been incorrectly modified. Historical records will be reviewed following restoration of current residents.”

What is the health agency saying?

Health New Zealand, while supporting the company’s investigation, said MediMap, as a privately owned company, was solely responsible for its security and it needed to do everything it could.

Its digital services acting chief information technology officer Darren Douglass said New Zealanders expected companies involved in healthcare to secure systems and platforms so private information was safeguarded.

MediMap has declined an interview with RNZ, but has again been approached for comment.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The High Court trial of two men charged over the wrongful 1980s conviction of Alan Hall has been further delayed.

It had been due to start in Auckland on Monday but one of the defendants was too unwell to attend.

At another hearing on Wednesday, the four-week judge-alone trial was pushed back to next Monday.

The men, whose names and occupations are suppressed, are jointly charged with wilfully attempting to pervert the course of justice.

They earlier pleaded not guilty.

Alan Hall was jailed for life in 1985 for the murder of Arthur Easton, but was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2022 and awarded $5 million in compensation.

At the time Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann said it was a trial gone wrong, and that there had been a substantial miscarriage of justice and he should be acquitted.

Winkelmann said to conclude, it was clear that justice had seriously miscarried – either from extreme incompetence, or a deliberate strategy to achieve a conviction.

A third man facing similar charges to those in the current case died in 2024.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Two people are critically injured after the car they were in collided with a freight train near New Plymouth on Wednesday.

Emergency services responded to the crash off Mountain Road, State Highway 3A in Lepperton around 8.40am.

A spokesperson for Hato Hone St John said a helicopter, two ambulances, and one operations manager attended.

Two patients in a critical condition were taken to Taranaki Hospital, one by helicopter, and one by ambulance, they said.

Fire and Emergency shift manager Alex Norris said firefighters had to cut the car’s occupants free from the wreck.

The Serious Crash Unit was investigating and the road was down to one lane.

Kiwirail chief operations officer Duncan Roy said the accident happened on the Marton-New Plymouth Line at a private level-crossing.

He said the train was heading north to New Plymouth and the crossing is controlled by stop signs.

“In line with our standard practice our driver will be given leave, and all of our staff involved will be offered support from KiwiRail,” he said.

“Emergency services are attending the scene and any further comment should come from the police.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

• The Reserve Bank says banks should provide basic cash services
• Services should be walkable distance in urban areas or driveable in rural areas
• Services should include cash withdrawals, deposits and change
• The RBNZ suggest banking hubs in addition to what individual banks provide
• It says banks earn big enough profits to cover costs
• The RBNZ is seeking submissions, which close on 10 April

The Reserve Bank (RBNZ) is suggesting the banking industry should be forced to provide basic cash handling services to consumers and businesses throughout the country.

The central bank has opened a six week consultation process to get public views on ensuring and maintaining a minimum level of cash in districts.

RBNZ director of money and cash Ian Woolford said providing and handling cash should be a basic banking service.

“We believe banks must provide cash services to customers, free-of-charge, because cash is an essential part of a customer’s relationship with their bank.”

He said banks had been reducing the places where customers could get cash, bank cash or get change, especially in rural areas, with about 40 percent of bank branches closed over the past decade.

“We want this to change, and we are open as to how,” Woolford said.

“Cash benefits society, as it is used for economic, social and cultural reasons, and as the steward of cash we are focused on ensuring the cash system is healthy and available.”

The bank cash hub – walkable, driveable

The RBNZ said the most efficient way to provide minimum access standards was a ‘multi-bank, full-service cash site’.

Such hubs would offer customers of any bank three types of cash service – cash withdrawals, cash depositing, and cash swapping of high denomination bank notes for lower notes and coins.

It said five full service hubs currently existed in Martinborough, Ōpōtiki, Twizel, Waimate and Whangamatā, but were only available to ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Kiwibank, TSB, and Westpac customers.

Several other locations offered only partial services, or were open only to account holders of the bank providing the service.

The RBNZ has been running a trial in Waipukurau with an automated teller machine which offers 24 hours a day allowing people to swap cash for bigger or smaller denominations, to withdraw cash, and soon to be able to deposit business takings direct into accounts.

The proposal said banks should be responsible for ensuring enough cash service sites around the country, it suggested 2.5 sites for every 10,000 people.

Urban sites should be in areas where there were at least 1,000 people within three kilometres walking distance.

Rural sites would cater for between 200 and 1,000 people and be within 15 kms drive, or no more than 30 kms for remote areas.

The RBNZ produced 66 district maps with suggested urban and rural locations for the hubs.

It said arrangements for supplying and collecting cash from districts should be worked out later.

The banks should pay, they make enough profit

Woolford said the benefits of making cash available outweighed the costs.

He said cash services provided benefits to the country of $2.83 billion a year, with an estimated annual cost to the banks of around $104m.

“This cost is negligible when compared to the more than $10bn annual pre-tax profits earned together by the banking sector.”

Woolford said several other countries were moving in the same direction, and research showed a high level of demand for cash with more than 70 percent of small businesses saying they would be adversely affected if cash was unavailable.

The RBNZ’s own research showed 80 percent of adults used cash sometimes, more than half store cash and 8 percent relied on cash as their sole means of payment.

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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 controversial North Taranaki composting company has been fined more than $71,000 for discharging offensive odours described by neighbours as smelling like “faecal and pig effluent” from its site near Uruti.

The company pleaded guilty at the New Plymouth District Court to discharging odorous compounds between March and May 2024, when the discharges were not permitted by the resource consent held by Remediation NZ.

Site inspections from March to June 2024 by Taranaki Regional Council officers found a number of issues with the management of the site operations which contributed to “odour generation”.

This included uncontrolled venting of odours from compost piles due to insufficient capping materials and poor management of associated site operations resulting in the generation and subsequent discharge of offensive odours beyond the site.

Remediation NZ holds 10 resource consents at the site and conditions for these include that discharges of odour beyond the site’s boundary should not be “offensive or objectionable”.

Following the 2024 inspections, officers said the odour had an “unpleasant pig effluent character” and an “unpleasant faecal character” and was assessed as “offensive and objectionable”.

One inspection on 19 April 2024 detected an odour linked to the RNZ facility about 2.5km from the site’s entrance.

Assessments on 7 March and 24 April by the council were proactive monitoring while monitoring on 19 and 23 April, 11 May and 18 May were in response to complaints.

‘Offensive odour can be pervasive and life altering’ – judge

Prosecutor Karenza de Silva told the court that on five of the six dates, the alleged occurrences of the odour was assessed as offensive and objectionable at a residential address.

The court heard a victim impact statement from a neighbour who rated the odour’s severity as between six to eight out of 10 when he made several complaints.

Judge MJL Dickey said there was no doubt the odour was objectionable during the site assessments and it was likely the offensive odours were also emitted at other times.

“Offensive odour can be pervasive and life altering. It is difficult to escape, and I have no doubt that those experiencing it would have been revolted and distressed. I find the effects of the offending were serious.”

Judge Dickey took into account measures the company put in place to improve systems and infrastructure, but the offending demonstrated the site was not being adequately managed. The company’s culpability was “highly careless”.

While a 25 percent sentencing discount was applied to the $95,000 fine starting point for Remediation NZ’s guilty plea, no discount was applied for the “belated” remedial steps which were necessary and not a circumstance for a discount.

A discount for good behaviour was also denied by the judge due to the company’s long enforcement history at the facility.

TRC had issued Remedation NZ 16 abatement notices and 34 infringement notices between July 2009 and January 2024.

Remediation NZ had eight previous convictions under the RMA, including a conviction in 2010 for five discharges from its site.

‘A hugely detrimental impact’

Council compliance manager Jared Glasgow welcomed the fine imposed on Remediation NZ given the company’s long history of failing to comply with its resource consent obligations.

“We are pleased with the outcome of this case as the odours have made life very difficult for those living near to the composting site,” Glasgow said.

“The victim impact statements show that the offending had a hugely detrimental impact on residents in the Uruti Valley. Our officers saw this for themselves during the inspections and this was why it was important to bring this prosecution.

“The level of the fine and the fact no discounts were allowed for mitigation or good behaviour reflect the seriousness of the case.

“Hopefully the $71,250 fine will act as a deterrent and a reminder to resource consent holders that they have a duty to follow the rules and ensure discharges are not negatively impacting people living nearby.”

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