Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police are appealing for public help after a pedestrian was hit and killed by a car and the driver left the scene.

It happened in Te Anau at about 8.45am outside a business in the town centre.

Police want to speak with the driver, and want to hear from anyone in the area who saw the crash.

They’re also appealing for anyone who may have dashcam footage of it, or of the moments before.

Anyone with information is urged to contact police as soon as possible.

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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 government is urging New Zealanders in Mexico to monitor updates and follow the advice of local authorities after the death of a mexican drug lord prompted violence and disruptions.

Following the death of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, incidents were reported across the state of Jalisco, including in Guadalajara, Chapala and Puerto Vallarta, after a federal law-enforcement operation.

SafeTravel has said that New Zealanders in the affected areas should monitor local media for updates and follow the advice of the local authorities.

It also advised Kiwis in the region to contact the New Zealand Embassy if they require consular assistance.

Travel in the affected areas had been restricted with airlines suspending some flights in Jalisco, including to Puerto Vallarta. Due to highway blockades across the country, bus service had also been suspended in many areas.

SafeTravel said New Zealanders should get in touch with their travel provider for any updates or disruptions to travel.

It said security incidents were also reported in other parts of Mexico and authorities in Puerto Vallarta had issued a public advisory to stay indoors.

The New Zealand Embassy can be contacted on +52 55 5283 9460 or nzmexico@mfat.govt.nz. For urgent consular assistance after hours, please call +64 99 20 20 20.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Waikato district nurses are at the end of their tether, as demand for their services soars.

District nurses – who provide care for patients in the community rather than in hospitals or clinics – say they are severely understaffed and it is causing burnout and stress, leading to widespread resignations.

They also say it is putting their safety at risk.

It comes as Worksafe considers a complaint from the NZ Nurses Organisation that Health New Zealand’s failure to improve district nurses’ working conditions was a breach of the Health and Safety Act.

Amy* is a district nurse from the Coromandel and says when she finally gets home after a shift she is so exhausted she can not do anything other than quickly eat dinner and then roll straight into bed.

She has done the job for several decades and said understaffing was the worst it had ever been.

She told Checkpoint she has to be on call, almost around the clock.

“If you go out at 11 at night, you might be out for two hours till one in the morning. You’ve then gotta unwind somehow because you’ve just been dealing with a palliative situation… possible end of life and then have to get yourself organised and come to work at eight in the morning.”

District nurses provide care to people in their communities. This includes care for wounds, IV management and palliative care.

It means nurses in rural areas often have to travel long distances multiple times.

Amy said that due to the staffing issues, they can be forced to choose which patients to see that day.

“It has been for too long, a very invisible service. And it’s only when the wheels start falling off and we start saying ‘no, I’m sorry, we can’t take patients, we actually can’t see them’, that it’s created a crisis. The risk is also that people are discharged without the support that they need. They have another crisis where they end up back in hospital very quickly.”

Amy said without district nursing, 30 percent of their patients would end up in hospital, which would come at a far higher cost to the taxpayer.

“There isn’t a team wrapped around them. Every time they’re at a patient’s house, there isn’t somebody to ring. There isn’t a doctor just down the hallway or whatever. So that decision making happens for those nurses every day individually in a person’s home when they’re right there.

“You can’t just go and get somebody else to just come and have a quick look… it’s not a thing, so responsibility is very high.”

Sarah*, another Coromandel district nurse, said many of her colleagues over the years had resigned because they could not cope with the physical and mental toll of the job.

“I know there are some people that are on anti-depressants, I personally am not at that stage yet, but then it takes a lot to stress me out.

“But when you’ve got a family, I’ve only got a husband at home, but there are staff members who’ve got families and young children.”

Sarah said district nurses can be sent to isolated areas where there was no phone signal so they were unable to call for help if it was needed.

“At the moment we do go out by ourselves, we also go out to houses we’ve never been to before and they could be out in the middle of nowhere.

“You don’t know what you’re going to find when you get to that house. Sometimes, it’s not a very nice environment and you really don’t want to be there, so sometimes we just turn around and drive off.

“But you don’t know that until you actually get to the house.”

The situation is similar in Hamilton.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation said 34 full-time district nurses were needed across Waikato in 2024.

But NZNO Waikato organiser Nigel Dawson said demand for the service had nearly doubled since then.

“We need as soon as possible to re-do those calculations to look at what is required for safe staffing now.”

Dawson said district nurses in Hamilton are also often confronted with verbal and physical intimidation.

“A nurse had stopped at a traffic light and an offender jumped in with a machete, they didn’t actually take the car, but they forced her to drive around.

“She eventually managed to abandon the vehicle safely, but obviously with significant stress.”

In November last year, the NZ Nurses Organisation (NZNO) wrote to Health NZ Te Whatu Ora and said the understaffing of district nurses was putting their safety at risk.

Worksafe said it was considering the NZNO’s complaint.

Health New Zealand Waikato chief nursing officer Cheryl Atherfold said it was currently recruiting an extra 13 full-time district nurses.

It was also reviewing community models of care such as district nursing, while strengthening night-call processes.

Every Health NZ Waikato car has a distress alarm on each key ring, which staff can push if they felt unsafe while out in the community.

Heath NZ have started their 2026 patient safety calculations and District Nursing will be recalculated.

*Names have been changed to protect identities

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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 business owner who has lost tens of thousands of dollars due to Wellington’s sewage leak wants a more targeted rāhui so beach users can return to parts of the coast that are currently off limits.

The city’s southern coast has been off limits since the Moa Point treatment plant failed catastrophically sending about 70 million litres of untreated sewage to the sea daily.

The no go zones include Ōwhiro and Island bays, just a few kilometres from the plant.

The results of water samples taken on Friday along Wellington’s south coast show a significant drop in the amount of bacteria in the water, but the Rāhui or ban is still in place.

Wellington Water said work on the larger air vent for the outfall pipe has finished, which should help the flow of water through the long outfall pipe and reduce what goes through the short outfall pipe in bad weather.

Dave Drane owns Dive Wellington at Island Bay, and the spill has already cost his business significantly.

Drane told Checkpoint the business was down $25,000 in comparison to February last year.

“We have no other option of where to take people. The marine reserve’s our big draw card and that’s what brings people to us and we’re unable to dive it at the moment.”

At this time of year, the school would normally have 20 to 30 people a day diving in the marine area that is now blocked off.

The business also runs a dive diploma, training divers for a full year.

“They dive just about every day, they do 100 dives in a year, so it’s affecting them quite dramatically.”

“We’re diving in the harbour when we can, but as soon as there’s a big northerly, it kills the harbour diving for us, like the south coast is where you have to go in a big northerly.”

Drane said the other option is to take the boat out further towards Red Rocks, but strong winds often make that difficult too.

The marine reserve extends through Ōwhiro Bay, which Drane said often experiences pollution already.

“As soon as there’s a downpour of rain, we have the overflow from stormwater. So if they’re testing in Ōwhiro Bay, quite often they’re getting the result of that anyway.”

Drane said he wants to see the Rāhui lifted for places further out from Moa Point, including Ōwhiro Baywhich he said has had close to clean testing for a while now.

He told Checkpoint he is “disappointed and pretty angry” at what had happened, and it was “embarrassing” to have to inform customers that they couldn’t go in the water.

“We’ve got this jewel, Tapituranga Marine Reserve, right on our doorstep, and we’ve spent years just like leaving it alone to grow as it should, and now it’s getting polluted, supposedly, and it should never have happened in the first place.”

“There’s other businesses that are suffering more than us, even, like the surf shops in Lyall Bay and things like that, it must be devastating for them.”

Drane said they would not be covered by insurance for the losses caused by the spill.

“My thought would be that Veolia or someone’s insurance company should have some sort of compensation underneath their insurance.”

While he recently attended a meeting fronted by Wellington Mayor Andrew Little, and various Green MPs to discuss the spill, Drane said no-one from Veolia was there to front up.

“Those that need it, give them compensation and make sure this never happens again.”

Drane said it was “terrible” to be not know how long it would take before the beaches were safe for use again.

After taking samples on Saturday morning Wellington Water was still urging people to avoid swimming, diving, gathering or eating kaimoana along the south coast.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Companies sending goods up and down the country’s railways could begin to favour road transport as KiwiRail manages declining assets, an expert says.

KiwiRail is focusing on upgrades and electrification in Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga – the so-called “golden triangle” – and other main freight lines while it manages older assets elsewhere.

The company said it was the only option that would allow it to meet budget cuts of $200 million over the next three years.

It’s preferred option to make “modest improvements” to network reliability and resilience would cost $6 to 7 billion, KiwiRail’s Rail Network Investment Programme said.

But the option it was forced to take due to budget constraints “attempts to keep all lines open but accepts there is potential for some line closures” at a cost of $4 to 5 billion, it said.

Rail, freight and public transport consultant Michael van Drogenbroek, who used to work for KiwiRail, told Nine to Noon freight lines could become less reliable.

“There’s potential risk there, if the main trunk was degraded in some way south of the golden triangle, that train speeds would have to be reduced, and therefore productivity of the rail network reduces, and customers start to move away.”

That was particularly a risk for services that needed to meet Cook Strait ferry connections, said van Drogenbroek.

But he said there was still significant investment in rail networks, and KiwiRail was taking a pragmatic approach.

“What it does mean… is a focus on areas where there is perceived to be growth,” he said.

“KiwiRail will always focus on where the bulk of the traffic is.”

That included coal on the West Coast of the South Island and interisland rail freight between Auckland and Christchurch, he said.

“Whilst it’s a focus on the golden triangle… It’s not an exclusive focus on that.”

Places south of the golden triangle still needed rail investment in the longer term, he said.

“This doesn’t take the option away to do that, but it really does defer a decision in some cases, across what the future state of the national rail network is.”

KiwiRail would not leave “key customers” in the lurch, said van Drogenbroek.

“They’re not gonna walk away from coal on the West Coast, just like they’re not gonna walk away from Fonterra, which moves a huge amount of dairy powder from the likes of Edendale in Southland to the Port of Otago.”

With a “managed declined” approach, there was a point where lines could no longer be nursed along, he said.

“If you get past a certain tipping point, it all becomes too difficult and the regulator steps in and says you have to stop trains on certain sections of line.”

But van Drogenbroek said New Zealand railways were being managed pragmatically and there was still significant investment in the network.

KiwiRail’s chief infrastructure officer Siva Sivapakkiam said the funding constraints mean prioritising lines which are most used: Auckland and Wellington metros, the golden triangle and the main trunk lines in the North and South Islands.

“We are working to save money nationally by introducing new, more cost-effective approaches to upgrade work,” he said.

“For example, we are delivering more standardised bridge designs, where most bridges previously tended to be bespoke.”

Renewals on parts of the network would be “staged and partial”, and increased inspections and day-to-day maintenance would ensure service standards were adequate, said Sivapakkiam.

Rail minister Winston Peters said the point of the Rail Network Investment Programme was to “arrest the decline in network condition through prudent renewals of assets and efficient maintenance activity”.

He said KiwiRail has been spending 61 cents in its network dollar on maintenance and renewals, which was forecast to lift to 75 cents over the coming decade.

Taking an iterative approach and dealing with renewals over years would allow the network to stay open during that work, Peters said.

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