Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

A District Court judge will have her actions scrutinised by a Judicial Conduct Panel today, as she faces accusations of disrupting a New Zealand First event.

Judge Ema Aitken will appear before the panel, after allegedly disrupting a function at Auckland’s exclusive Northern Club in 2024.

She is accused of shouting that NZ First leader Winston Peters was lying.

Judge Aitken said she didn’t shout, did not recognise Peters’ voice when she responded to remarks she overheard and did not know it was a political event.

A judicial conduct panel will determine facts and write a report to the attorney-general, including whether the removal of the judge is justified.

It is being led by retired Court of Appeal Judge Brendan Brown KC, and includes sitting Court of Appeal Judge Justice Jillian Mallon and former Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae.

Judge Aitken is being represented by David Jones KC.

Presenting the allegations of misconduct to the panel are special counsel Tim Stephens KC and Jonathan Orpin-Dowell.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Wellington leaders are calling for an investigation into Moa Point Treatment Plant’s failure.

The local MP says concerns have been raised over whether the plant’s privately-owned operator Veolia was fulfilling its contract.

Crews have spent the weekend trying to clean up Wellington’s wastewater plant so they can assess the damage after it was shut down due to being flooded by raw sewage. It’s likely to be months before the Moa Point plant is back in operation.

In the meantime, millions of litres of untreated sewage continue to spill out into the Cook Strait since early Wednesday.

Green MP Julie Anne Genter, who is the local MP, told Morning Report it was devastating.

“It’s really disappointing. I know so many people in Wellington love our south coast, and this is precisely the time they would be out there on a beautiful day on the beach,” Genter said.

“… It’s bad for us, but it is even worse for our wildlife.”

She said there were little blue penguins, or kororā, in the bay and a pod of dolphins there on Sunday.

“We can do better, we have to do better.”

Genter said the council was putting enormous amounts of money into Moa Point, with an upgrade happening at the wastewater treatment plant.

She said concerns have previously been raised over the performance of Moa Point plant’s privately-owned operator Veolia.

“There seems to be some separation between the private company, Wellington Water and the ability of the elected people to get the results that we need,” she said.

Genter said there needs to be a full investigation.

Wellington mayor Andrew Little said last week that he would raise what he has called a “catastrophic” failure of the city’s sewage plant with the prime minister. He is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Monday.

Little said one of the questions in the days ahead would be about setting up an appropriate investigation or inquiry into what happened.

“We can’t let this happen again,” he said. “We can’t let such a critical plant for a modern city fail in the way that this has and cause the environmental degradation that it has.

“It’s important we get the facts and it’s important we understand what we need to do to prevent it from happening again.”

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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 parents of a 3-year-old Dunedin girl with hip dysplasia say she has suffered unnecessary pain and trauma from a delayed diagnosis and then being subjected to the wrong kind of operation.

They plan to take her to Europe for further treatment, saying they no longer have trust in the New Zealand health system.

Despite her ordeal, Lubomira Weyland rarely stops smiling, a limp is currently the only sign that things are not quite right.

It was a Plunket nurse at the five-month check who first noticed her hip creases were not even, and suggested her parents consult their GP.

Her father, Marvin Weyland, said the doctor consulted a specialist at Dunedin Hospital’s orthopaedics department in April 2023.

“The only thing he did was look at the photo and decide based on that photo and fact that her hips were checked when she was born, he assumed everything would be OK.”

If the problem had been picked up then, it could have been treated with a harness.

However, it was two years later that her pre-school teacher noticed Mira was limping.

An X-ray showed she had hip dysplasia, where the “ball” (femoral head) of the thigh bone does not fit snugly into the “socket” in the pelvis.

Without treatment, it causes uneven leg length, pain, early arthritis, dislocations and even necrosis, where the tissue in the hip dies.

In October 2024 Mira had a procedure called a “closed reduction” under general anaesthetic, where the surgeon manipulated the hip back into the socket.

Her mother Agnieszka Sieradzka had just given birth to Mira’s little brother, who spent several weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit after being born prematurely.

“It was also very difficult because Mira slept very badly in the cast and having also a little baby who on principle don’t sleep very well, the nights were very difficult. The whole time was difficult.”

They took her for several follow up appointments at the hospital and she had another anaesthetic to change the cast.

“And they never saw anything wrong until we noticed she was limping again,” the father said.

“We had a second X-ray and again it was obvious that her hip was dislocated. So it looked exactly like before the surgery.”

The parents assumed this set-back was just bad luck – until they did some more research and consulted specialists in Europe, who told them a closed reduction would never have worked because Mira was already too old.

By the age of 2, an open reduction is needed.

Sieradzka said it was devastating that Mira went through surgery and spent months in a cast “for nothing”.

“It didn’t have any chance to succeed and everything we went through was… I don’t know, I can’t even express the feeling of that.”

Internal investigation

ACC has recognised the delayed diagnosis as “a treatment injury” and Health NZ has apologised to the family for the distress suffered by them because of that and the subsequent complications.

In a written response to RNZ’s questions, the Southern Group Director of Operations for Health NZ, Craig Ashton, said Health NZ “acknowledged the distress the family has experienced”.

“Our aim is always to provide excellent healthcare, and we take these matters extremely seriously.”

“Our staff work extremely hard to provide the best possible care for our patients.”

Health NZ had undertaken an internal investigation to understand what occurred and “establish any necessary procedural changes”, he said.

“We have shared review findings with the family.”

Scans showed surgery had failed

The report, which Mira’s parents have shared with RNZ, includes comments by two orthopaedic surgeons who reviewed the post-operative scans of Mira’s hip and could see the hip was not properly aligned.

“In retrospect, the imaging suggests that the hip may not have been perfectly concentrically reduced, which would increase the risk of treatment failure,” one noted, while conceding that interpretation of this imaging was “subjective and not an exact science”.

“Mr A [who did the surgery] who has significant expertise in this area, reviewed the imaging at the time and was satisfied that the hip was reduced.”

The other specialist said “on retrospective review of the arthogram, I am concerned that the femoral head was not sitting concentrically in the acetabulum and hence potentially not stable”.

Weyland said the surgeon who operated told them everything went perfectly but it should have been clear to him that it had not worked.

That specialist no longer works at Dunedin Hospital and did not take part in the review.

The review found the GP had not made a formal referral regarding Mira’s hip creases, but just sought advice.

The specialist said asymmetrical creases alone were “not a good indicator” of hip dysplasia, but if he had known there were other problems, he would have seen Lubomira promptly in clinic and he was “personally very sorry” for the impact the delay had.

Health NZ concluded there was no fixed age at which closed reduction surgery should no longer be done, and the treatment decisions in Mira’s case “appear to be consistent with appropriate clinical judgement at the time”.

Family fundraising for overseas surgery

Mira has been on the wait list for corrective surgery at Starship Children’s Hospital since August.

However, her parents are planning to take her to Poland for treatment.

“Even the doctors at Starship don’t do the surgery often, they know one of several different techniques that might be necessary,” Marvin Weyland said.

“They also tell us that the surgery if they do it there will take five hours, whereas the overseas clinics, with them it takes two hours.

“That gives you an idea of the difference in experience.”

Sieradzka said she blamed herself for not asking more questions.

“It’s caused a complete failure of trust in the healthcare professions.”

The couple, who are both academics at Otago University, hope to take Mira to Poland for surgery in the next couple of months.

They are fundraising to help cover the cost of the surgery (about $50,000) plus travel and accommodation, which is likely to cost more than $20,000.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The parents of a 3-year-old Dunedin girl with hip dysplasia say she has suffered unnecessary pain and trauma from a delayed diagnosis and then being subjected to the wrong kind of operation.

They plan to take her to Europe for further treatment, saying they no longer have trust in the New Zealand health system.

Despite her ordeal, Lubomira Weyland rarely stops smiling, a limp is currently the only sign that things are not quite right.

It was a Plunket nurse at the five-month check who first noticed her hip creases were not even, and suggested her parents consult their GP.

Her father, Marvin Weyland, said the doctor consulted a specialist at Dunedin Hospital’s orthopaedics department in April 2023.

“The only thing he did was look at the photo and decide based on that photo and fact that her hips were checked when she was born, he assumed everything would be OK.”

If the problem had been picked up then, it could have been treated with a harness.

However, it was two years later that her pre-school teacher noticed Mira was limping.

An X-ray showed she had hip dysplasia, where the “ball” (femoral head) of the thigh bone does not fit snugly into the “socket” in the pelvis.

Without treatment, it causes uneven leg length, pain, early arthritis, dislocations and even necrosis, where the tissue in the hip dies.

In October 2024 Mira had a procedure called a “closed reduction” under general anaesthetic, where the surgeon manipulated the hip back into the socket.

Her mother Agnieszka Sieradzka had just given birth to Mira’s little brother, who spent several weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit after being born prematurely.

“It was also very difficult because Mira slept very badly in the cast and having also a little baby who on principle don’t sleep very well, the nights were very difficult. The whole time was difficult.”

They took her for several follow up appointments at the hospital and she had another anaesthetic to change the cast.

“And they never saw anything wrong until we noticed she was limping again,” the father said.

“We had a second X-ray and again it was obvious that her hip was dislocated. So it looked exactly like before the surgery.”

The parents assumed this set-back was just bad luck – until they did some more research and consulted specialists in Europe, who told them a closed reduction would never have worked because Mira was already too old.

By the age of 2, an open reduction is needed.

Sieradzka said it was devastating that Mira went through surgery and spent months in a cast “for nothing”.

“It didn’t have any chance to succeed and everything we went through was… I don’t know, I can’t even express the feeling of that.”

Internal investigation

ACC has recognised the delayed diagnosis as “a treatment injury” and Health NZ has apologised to the family for the distress suffered by them because of that and the subsequent complications.

In a written response to RNZ’s questions, the Southern Group Director of Operations for Health NZ, Craig Ashton, said Health NZ “acknowledged the distress the family has experienced”.

“Our aim is always to provide excellent healthcare, and we take these matters extremely seriously.”

“Our staff work extremely hard to provide the best possible care for our patients.”

Health NZ had undertaken an internal investigation to understand what occurred and “establish any necessary procedural changes”, he said.

“We have shared review findings with the family.”

Scans showed surgery had failed

The report, which Mira’s parents have shared with RNZ, includes comments by two orthopaedic surgeons who reviewed the post-operative scans of Mira’s hip and could see the hip was not properly aligned.

“In retrospect, the imaging suggests that the hip may not have been perfectly concentrically reduced, which would increase the risk of treatment failure,” one noted, while conceding that interpretation of this imaging was “subjective and not an exact science”.

“Mr A [who did the surgery] who has significant expertise in this area, reviewed the imaging at the time and was satisfied that the hip was reduced.”

The other specialist said “on retrospective review of the arthogram, I am concerned that the femoral head was not sitting concentrically in the acetabulum and hence potentially not stable”.

Weyland said the surgeon who operated told them everything went perfectly but it should have been clear to him that it had not worked.

That specialist no longer works at Dunedin Hospital and did not take part in the review.

The review found the GP had not made a formal referral regarding Mira’s hip creases, but just sought advice.

The specialist said asymmetrical creases alone were “not a good indicator” of hip dysplasia, but if he had known there were other problems, he would have seen Lubomira promptly in clinic and he was “personally very sorry” for the impact the delay had.

Health NZ concluded there was no fixed age at which closed reduction surgery should no longer be done, and the treatment decisions in Mira’s case “appear to be consistent with appropriate clinical judgement at the time”.

Family fundraising for overseas surgery

Mira has been on the wait list for corrective surgery at Starship Children’s Hospital since August.

However, her parents are planning to take her to Poland for treatment.

“Even the doctors at Starship don’t do the surgery often, they know one of several different techniques that might be necessary,” Marvin Weyland said.

“They also tell us that the surgery if they do it there will take five hours, whereas the overseas clinics, with them it takes two hours.

“That gives you an idea of the difference in experience.”

Sieradzka said she blamed herself for not asking more questions.

“It’s caused a complete failure of trust in the healthcare professions.”

The couple, who are both academics at Otago University, hope to take Mira to Poland for surgery in the next couple of months.

They are fundraising to help cover the cost of the surgery (about $50,000) plus travel and accommodation, which is likely to cost more than $20,000.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A mental health patient who stabbed a stranger while on escorted leave had a history of violence and had previously stabbed two relatives.

He’s now been made a special patient which means he is detained in hospital.

The judge says it’s concerning that the latest attack happened while the man was in the care of mental health services and his traumatised victim says it should never have been allowed to happen.

She was walking home at the time and says both she and the offender have been “failed by a system that was meant to keep us all safe”.

Poutama Rawiti Clarence Owen appeared in the Hutt Valley District Court before Judge Michael Mika on Wednesday after earlier being found not guilty by reason of insanity on a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Do you know more? Email sam.sherwood@rnz.co.nz

Court documents obtained by RNZ reveal that on 14 November 2024, Owen was on escorted leave in Waiwhetu, Lower Hutt.

About 7.40pm he walked along a street with “clenched fists” holding a black handled knife, with a sharp blade.

“Upon coming across the victim, the defendant has lunged towards her.”

Owen struck the woman in the left side of her neck with the knife. He then tried unsuccessfully to stab her a second time in the back before striking her a third time on the right side of her upper back.

The knife penetrated the victim’s neck and back.

At the beginning of Wednesday’s hearing the victim, who has name suppression, read a victim impact statement to the court.

In her statement, which she wrote more than a year ago, she said she had just got off a bus and was walking home with her dinner in her hand when she was stabbed in the neck, back of her head and back by what she thought was a flathead screwdriver by a man she did not know.

“Once I knew I was safe in the ambulance and had finally let the emotions hit I felt a lot of sadness, sad because I realised something must be seriously wrong for someone to stab someone who they did not know and to walk away as if nothing had happened.

“Sad because I couldn’t help but think both he and I had been failed by a system that was meant to keep us all safe.”

She said she was struggling to walk on the street where she was assaulted.

“I find it hard to be out in public spaces. I feel distrusting of others and uncomfortable in places with strangers. I find myself being easily startled, and this in itself has negatively impacted my sleep which has had its own knock-on effects.

“I find people coming from behind me frightens me and strangers coming towards me makes me feel anxious.”

The woman said it had been “incredibly exhausting” both mentally and emotionally for her and her family.

Upon learning of the “escorted leave mental health dynamic” the woman felt “incredibly sad and angry”.

“I am incredibly aware of how severe my situation was and how fortunate a number of my past experiences, current capabilities and know how prevented this from being a much worse situation and perhaps even saved my life.

“It is with that in mind that I never want anyone else to experience and go through what I did, I don’t want blame and the additional harm that often comes with that, but responsibility which leads to actions which improves things, to ensure such things never happen again, because I want to be able to feel safe in my local community.”

The woman had recently updated her victim impact statement to include that over a year on her journey to heal from the trauma continued.

“It is extremely difficult to be able to move on from such harm on a street that I continue to walk most days, which serves as a regular reminder of what happened and what could have been much worse.

“We should all be able to feel and be safe in our neighbourhoods, which on that Thursday evening, we unfortunately were not. I hope for my own continued healing and wholeness, to be able to move on and find greater peace. But I also hope for healing and wholeness for the man who stabbed me.”

‘Severe treatment resistant illness’

Owen’s lawyer told the court the 26-year-old had a “very basic understanding” of what was going on in terms of the court process.

“I’ve explained to him prior to call today that it’s recommended that he be made a special patient, I don’t think he really understands it.

“I’ve done my best to explain that he will, if an order was made, he’s going to stay in hospital for quite some time… his capacity to understand that is very limited.”

The lawyer said his position was to neither consent nor oppose the making of a special patient order.

The Crown prosecutor said she agreed with the recommendation that Owen be made a special patient.

Judge Mika told the court he had earlier found Owen not guilty on account of insanity.

“Mr Owen has a severe treatment resistant illness, namely schizophrenia. He is currently presenting with chronic psychotic features including persecutorial delusions and somatic hallucinations, his current offending… reflects a well established pattern of violence, violent behaviours where Mr Owen acted on delusional compulsion to protect himself or others from perceived threats.”

In September 2021 Owen stabbed a relative, the following year he stabbed another relative, Judge Mika said.

“Mr Owen’s violence is increasing in diversity of victims, initially family and now unprovoked attack on members of the community and also in diversity and severity.

“It is concerning that the current charge occurred whilst Mr Owen was in the care of mental health services. This highlights the difficulties and challenges for the mental health service of accurately predicting and identifying Mr Owen’s violent behaviours. The threshold for detention as a special patient is high, but in my view, in this case, that threshold has been met.”

Health New Zealand (HNZ) regional director mental health and addiction for Central Region Paul Oxnam said in a statement that HNZ acknowledged the incident and the impact it had on all those involved.

“We are committed to providing safe, high-quality mental health care.

“An in-depth Serious Incident Review of this event is in its final stages. The purpose of the review is to identify areas for improvement to avoid such an incident happening again. We have already taken steps to improve our services, including changes to the way escorted leave is managed.”

In a statement to RNZ, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey said any serious incident was a “cause for concern”.

“I have made it very clear to HNZ that public and patient safety must always come first. It is important that when incidents do happen, investigations and reviews are triggered and that recommendations are acted on.

“I am informed that an in-depth Serious Incident Review of this incident is in the final stages. It is my expectation that Health New Zealand will implement the recommendations of that review as quickly as possible. I am also informed that while the review is ongoing steps have already been taken steps to improve services.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Fewer doctors than you might think are offering ADHD diagnosis and prescription services, despite rule changes at the start of the month.

There are hopes more will come on board, but for now, industry leaders say GPs could be slow to train up in an area most haven’t worked in for decades.

Luke Bradford, the president of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, told RNZ he would put the number about 15 to 20 percent currently.

“But that will steadily grow,” he said. “In my own surgery, for instance, the GP who wants to do it has identified that she wants to do it, she’s been on a couple of courses, and she feels she’ll be in a position to start in a couple of months.”

GPs were well placed to manage this kind of medication, he said, often having long-term relationship with patients.

But their ability to prescribe ADHD drugs was removed in 1999, amid fears people were misusing them.

Bradford explained that, while doctors were technically allowed to a range of things, from minor surgery to skin cancer assessments to menopause medication, they had to recognise their own limits – and it would be negligent for them to do something they weren’t trained in.

While one in six doctors didn’t sound like many, it added up, he said.

“That is massive numbers – if you look across the nation, we’ve got 6000 GPs and the prevalence of ADHD is somewhere around 5 percent, of which we’re already managing 2 percent.

That equalled, conservatively, about 750 GPs for about 250,000 people with ADHD – of which less than half were on medication.

These rule changes were meant to provide more people with access to medication, to help close that gap.

Bradford said he expected GP numbers to grow, as more doctors took up the courses and more new grads emerged with an interest in the field.

Some 600 attended one of the college’s eight-week courses late last year.

Dr Kim Hurst, a GP in Whakatipu and clinical director at Green Cross Health, was one of them.

“I think the thing that surprised me is the uptake across my peers and colleagues has been lower than I expected, and I think that is largely due to the pressure that primary care is under at the moment.”

She compared it to the introduction of insulin prescription services

“Some of us felt way more comfortable doing it than others,” she said. “That transitional period took probably six to twelve months, and now that it’s bread-and-butter, we wouldn’t even think about sending a patient who needed to start insulin to hospital.”

Now, her team was working collaboratively to assess people for ADHD, with any doctor able to start the conversation, and then match the patient with a GP within the wider company who was happy to diagnose and prescribe.

“What I really didn’t want to see was kind of a sign up on the door saying, ‘We don’t do ADHD,” Hurst said. “I think that’s a disappointing message for patients with neurodiversity to hear.”

“We know ADHD is an under-diagnosed condition, and has a significant social and economic cost burden associated with it, so we really wanted to ensure we had open doors for that initial assessment, and then a means to navigate to GPs and nurse practitioners who have done the additional training.”

She said she had been heartened to see how many psychiatrists were approaching GPs to offer their advice or support.

Lewis Roscoe, who lives in Stanmore Bay, was one of those patients who had turned up at an appointment in early February, and left disappointed.

He got a diagnosis from a clinical psychologist, at a cost of $1500, in November.

He was told: “You can go to a psychiatrist, get them to prescribe you the medication, but that’s about $800, and so since we’d literally just coughed up $1500 already, it wasn’t really our go-to.”

But on hearing GPs would soon offer that service, he booked an appointment for February.

He even checked in multiple times to make sure his GP could prescribe that medication.

But, last week, he left his double appointment after only 10 minutes with a $150 bill, and a referral to a psychiatrist – which was what he’d been trying to avoid.

“I mean it’s still going to be cheaper than 800 bucks, but I guess if you want to compare price to stress levels, it would be nicer if it was a lot more clear-cut – see one person, get prescription, go to chemist,” he said.

He was still going to pursue a prescription through his GP, but if that didn’t work out by the end of the month, he’d start looking elsewhere.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Firefighters are set to return to the scene of a large fire at Taupō’s biggest school.

Crews have contained the blaze at Taupō-nui-a-Tia College that broke out on Sunday afternoon.

It’s left a teaching block significantly damaged.

The school will be closed today.

Local MP Louise Upston said the school and the Ministry of Education would minimise the disruption to students.

The ministry will meet with school staff today to assess the damage.

Board chairperson Michelle Barnett said the building houses several classrooms.

Fire and Emergency NZ said scene guards have been in place overnight and crews will be returning during daylight hours.

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