Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Radio New Zealand

A coronial inquiry into the death of 10-month-old Poseidyn Hemopo-Pickering has entered its second day.

Poseidyn was rushed to Middlemore Hospital and then taken to Starship Children’s Hospital on the evening of 5 September, 2020, after being found unresponsive at his Manurewa home.

He died in hospital the following morning.

Anthony Simon Pickering was acquitted of murdering his son in 2022 after a jury trial, and no one has been held responsible for the baby boy’s death.

The purpose of the coronial inquiry is to determine how Poseidyn died and the circumstances leading up to it, not criminal or civil liability.

At the Coroner’s Court in Auckland on Tuesday, Professor Colin Smith, a neuropathologist who examined a scan of Poseidyn’s brain, gave evidence as part of the inquiry. He appeared via audio-visual link from the UK.

Earlier in the inquiry Dr Fiona Miles – on duty at Starship Hospital’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit when Poseidyn arrived – said the hospital was told he fell and hit his head on a windowsill. But the severity of his injuries raised concern that they were non-accidental.

Smith also said Poseidyn’s injuries being caused by an accidental fall from a short distance did not seem plausible.

“It’s not uncommon for the toddler age group to fall over and hit their heads against the edge of tables or chairs and get a nasty bump, and they may get a skull fracture associated with it, but they don’t have a fatal head injury from that.

“In my opinion, there is no evidence to suggest this is a reasonable explanation for the severity of the head injury in this case.”

He said Poseidyn’s injuries would have required a greater force to inflict – and appeared to have suffered a serious skull fracture, a laceration of the brain and a blood clot in the brain.

He said this would have caused “extreme distress”, and it would have been obvious to those around Poseidyn that something was seriously wrong.

He said he would expect loss of consciousness either immediately or within a few minutes.

The inquiry continues.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Part of State Highway 1 at Meremere, south of Auckland, is closed after a crash between a car and motorbike.

It happened at 1.45pm and police say there are early reports of serious injuries.

The road is closed for north-bound traffic from Hampton Downs Road.

Police are warning of delays and asking drivers to avoid the area.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Biosecurity staff are out in South Auckland after finding more Oriental fruit flies in Papatoetoe on Monday.

Biosecurity NZ widened its surveillance area after it found three more fruit flies on Monday, bringing the total to four.

All of the flies were male, reassuring staff they had not been breeding.

“We’re putting extra signage up, and obviously because we’ve extended the zone we’ve got staff on the ground issuing pamphlets telling them what the public needs to know, what they can and can’t do,” northern commissioner Mike Inglis told RNZ.

“As well as traps, we’re collecting fruit to cut up and examine and as at this point there’s no evidence of any breeding population.”

He said staff were also meeting with businesses that sold fruit and vegetables.

“We’ll be engaging with what we class as high-risk businesses, and that’s those businesses that deal in fresh produce. Over the course of the last few days those local businesses have been fantastic too.”

Inglis said he was confident his team could eliminate the flies, as they had done many times before.

“We’ll continue to manage this. We’ve got vast experience alongside the public and community of eradicating this over 15 times in the last few years, so we’ll continue to do what we’re doing.

“[We’re] very confident in terms of experience over the years. I’m very conscious though that we need the support of the community, and I know there’s an inconvenience, and we try and mitigate that as far as is practical.”

He warned residents of Papatoetoe may have to put up with the restrictions for several weeks.

“Generally it’s between four and six weeks that we’ll make that decision. We’ll continue to make sure we’re updating the public.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Healthcare staff in Wellington’s Emergency Department will have to wait until 2029 for a bigger space, with one nurse describing corridors crowded with patients waiting for beds.

Renovations to add much-needed space to the ED were underway, as Health New Zealand worked to increase the capacity of the already stretched department by 34 “points of care” – that is, a combination of bed spaces, resus rooms, consult rooms, and treatment spaces – taking it from 53 to 87.

One New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) delegate, who didn’t want to be named, said the main problem was space.

“It’s too small. We get to the point where we can’t move. Corridors are full. We’ve had up to 26 patients in the corridor – that’s a lot of patients. That’s more than the little areas we see people in.”

ED’s weren’t allowed to turn anyone away, they said, no matter how full the department got – but sometimes, although they were not supposed to, staff would give ambulances a heads up that it might be some time before they could offload patients, and if there was anywhere else they could take them, they should do so.

“Our Wellington [patients] wouldn’t like to go out [to the Hutt] because they might not have any way to get back,” they said.

“If it’s an ambulance that’s taken them out there, and they’ve got no family, that can be a bit hard.”

The delegate hoped the renovations would mean parts that were spread out would be brought closer together – observation and pediatrics beds, even perhaps a mental health area.

The new ED was part of a $1 billion hospital-wide upgrade announced in Budget 2025, with the ED expected to open in 2029.

Health NZ’s group director of operations for Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley, Jamie Duncan, said the “front of whare” refurbishment was progressing well.

The ED was to be moved within the main hospital building, with renovations underway elsewhere in the hospital to make space.

A number of both clinical and non-clinical spaces were being relocated, Duncan said, but the work should improve other acute clinical spaces, too.

According to Health NZ, work underway at the moment included:

• Refurbishment of levels 6 and 7 of the Grace Neill Block in preparation for the relocation of the main Outpatients Department and other clinical services
• Construction of a new main reception area and a new Security Orderly Service base
• Creation of a new and improved Medical Assessment and Planning Unit (MAPU) to support patient flow throughout the wider hospital

Future work included the expansion of MAPU, along with the Surgical Assessment and Planning Unit (SAPU), and the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to further increase inpatient capacity.

The case for more space

Documents from as far back as December 2021, when Health NZ was still operating as separate District Health Boards, detailed the need for a “front of whare” project to address the lack of capacity.

Between October and January this year, Wellington Hospital’s ED went into its most critical code red status on average nearly twice a day (code red means hospital occupancy is forecast to exceed 100 percent – it does not indicate services are closed).

The detailed business case for the hospital upgrades, dated October 2024, said “without progressing the project, the hospital’s ED is in an unsustainable situation and will continue to be unable to meet the health needs of the region”.

“The ED is clinically and culturally unsafe, spaces are cramped, inadequately designed, fragmented and inefficient. Around 1/3 of patients are receiving treatment in a corridor. It is difficult to maintain consultant supervision and oversight of patients in five different areas,” it reads.

One of the government’s health targets – 95 percent of patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within 6 hours – would not be met without this work, it said.

One in ten people, facing long queues, did not wait to be seen by a clinician – making them more likely to come back later in a worse condition.

A lack of beds elsewhere in the hospital meant people were stuck in ED, taking up those beds.

Seismic assessments rated the current ED at 15 percent of the National Building Standard (NBS). Some strengthening work had increased that to 34 percent, but that was still below the recommended rating 67 percent.

Duncan said since the time of the report’s writing, HNZ remained focused on improving wait times.

“The significant work and investment made in this area has seen Wellington Regional Hospital’s performance against the Shorter Stays in ED (SSED) target improve by 11.6 percent points between January and December 2025 – a testament to the ongoing hard work and professionalism of our dedicated and fantastic staff,” he said.

But at the same time, there was growing demand for services and patients with more complex and acute needs.

“We acknowledge that there is still a long way to go and much work to do – however people can remain assured that ED is the safest place for them when experiencing a healthcare emergency, and that we remain committed to doing all we can to continue responding to the needs of our communities.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Tauranga City Council wants to make it easier to deal with complaints about bee poo.

It investigated 38 complaints about urban hives in the past two years – 34 of them about excrement.

The poo could create a waxy substance that was hard to get off outdoor furniture and decks.

The council’s animal service manager Oscar Glossop, told a local meeting, complaints could be difficult to investigate and act on.

“It’s very hard to prove the bees are a nuisance and are coming from a specific place once they get to a certain number. Most of these complaints come in around spring time when bees generally are at a high activity rate.”

The current rules meant staff had to decide whether to completely remove hives or leave them.

That could lead to lengthy appeals.

The proposed changes would allow for a more proportionate response, including education, that could avoid staff being pulled into drawn out disputes between neighbours.

“It would take away an expectation that we would be dealing with bee poo for 163 hours in the last two calendar years of staff time, and instead make it when it was an actual issue.” Glossop said.

A council paper on the problem said urban beekeeping had advantages, supporting food security and biodiversity.

The current rules allowed backyard hives as long as the bees are not a nuisance or causing safety problems.

The public would have the ability to have a say on the proposed changes in June.

They were part of wider changes to the Keeping of Animals Bylaw.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Healthcare staff in Wellington’s Emergency Department will have to wait until 2029 for a bigger space, with one nurse describing corridors crowded with patients waiting for beds.

Renovations to add much-needed space to the ED were underway, as Health New Zealand worked to increase the capacity of the already stretched department by 34 “points of care” – that is, a combination of bed spaces, resus rooms, consult rooms, and treatment spaces – taking it from 53 to 87.

One New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) delegate, who didn’t want to be named, said the main problem was space.

“It’s too small. We get to the point where we can’t move. Corridors are full. We’ve had up to 26 patients in the corridor – that’s a lot of patients. That’s more than the little areas we see people in.”

ED’s weren’t allowed to turn anyone away, they said, no matter how full the department got – but sometimes, although they were not supposed to, staff would give ambulances a heads up that it might be some time before they could offload patients, and if there was anywhere else they could take them, they should do so.

“Our Wellington [patients] wouldn’t like to go out [to the Hutt] because they might not have any way to get back,” they said.

“If it’s an ambulance that’s taken them out there, and they’ve got no family, that can be a bit hard.”

The delegate hoped the renovations would mean parts that were spread out would be brought closer together – observation and pediatrics beds, even perhaps a mental health area.

The new ED was part of a $1 billion hospital-wide upgrade announced in Budget 2025, with the ED expected to open in 2029.

Health NZ’s group director of operations for Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley, Jamie Duncan, said the “front of whare” refurbishment was progressing well.

The ED was to be moved within the main hospital building, with renovations underway elsewhere in the hospital to make space.

A number of both clinical and non-clinical spaces were being relocated, Duncan said, but the work should improve other acute clinical spaces, too.

According to Health NZ, work underway at the moment included:

• Refurbishment of levels 6 and 7 of the Grace Neill Block in preparation for the relocation of the main Outpatients Department and other clinical services
• Construction of a new main reception area and a new Security Orderly Service base
• Creation of a new and improved Medical Assessment and Planning Unit (MAPU) to support patient flow throughout the wider hospital

Future work included the expansion of MAPU, along with the Surgical Assessment and Planning Unit (SAPU), and the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to further increase inpatient capacity.

The case for more space

Documents from as far back as December 2021, when Health NZ was still operating as separate District Health Boards, detailed the need for a “front of whare” project to address the lack of capacity.

Between October and January this year, Wellington Hospital’s ED went into its most critical code red status on average nearly twice a day (code red means hospital occupancy is forecast to exceed 100 percent – it does not indicate services are closed).

The detailed business case for the hospital upgrades, dated October 2024, said “without progressing the project, the hospital’s ED is in an unsustainable situation and will continue to be unable to meet the health needs of the region”.

“The ED is clinically and culturally unsafe, spaces are cramped, inadequately designed, fragmented and inefficient. Around 1/3 of patients are receiving treatment in a corridor. It is difficult to maintain consultant supervision and oversight of patients in five different areas,” it reads.

One of the government’s health targets – 95 percent of patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within 6 hours – would not be met without this work, it said.

One in ten people, facing long queues, did not wait to be seen by a clinician – making them more likely to come back later in a worse condition.

A lack of beds elsewhere in the hospital meant people were stuck in ED, taking up those beds.

Seismic assessments rated the current ED at 15 percent of the National Building Standard (NBS). Some strengthening work had increased that to 34 percent, but that was still below the recommended rating 67 percent.

Duncan said since the time of the report’s writing, HNZ remained focused on improving wait times.

“The significant work and investment made in this area has seen Wellington Regional Hospital’s performance against the Shorter Stays in ED (SSED) target improve by 11.6 percent points between January and December 2025 – a testament to the ongoing hard work and professionalism of our dedicated and fantastic staff,” he said.

But at the same time, there was growing demand for services and patients with more complex and acute needs.

“We acknowledge that there is still a long way to go and much work to do – however people can remain assured that ED is the safest place for them when experiencing a healthcare emergency, and that we remain committed to doing all we can to continue responding to the needs of our communities.”

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

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