NZ Engine

Source: Radio New Zealand

Pharmacists and Health New Zealand have reached an agreement on pay and conditions, with members of the union voting to accept HNZ’s latest offer.

Pharmacy Association of Professionals and Executive Employees (APEX) members – which include pharmacists, pharmacy assistants and technicians – will receive a 2.5 percent salary increase from January 2026, and a two percent increase in 2027.

HNZ spokesperson Robyn Shearer said the health agency welcomed the decision, which would affect about 300 workers.

“We would like to acknowledge and thank APEX for its commitment to reaching this settlement.”

APEX represents pharmacy workers employed across Aotearoa, including those working for Te Whatu Ora and in private practice.

Senior advocate Denise Tairua told RNZ they began bargaining in mid-October, prior to their old agreement expiring in November.

“There’s a month between expiry and commencement,” she said. “It was an issue for the members, however, given some of the other things and improvements, it was a small timeframe not to receive back-dating.”

Other benefits included an increase in HNZ’s contribution to membership fees. It had been a longstanding practice for HNZ to cover less than the full cost of membership fees for various professional associations required for their work.

Those fees ranged from $200 to $500 annually, she said.

“There’s been a slight uplift in those, getting [HNZ’s contribution] nearer to that 80 percent.”

A pharmacy engagement group had also been formed, which would look at longstanding issues around safe staffing, monitoring the use of professional development funds, and the duration and frequency of on-call periods.

The bar for ratification was to exceed 50 percent. “We did have quite a good turnout, so a high percentage of members voted to ratify this agreement.”

“We’re quite pleased that this one didn’t drag on,” Tairua said. “What’s really important will be work we can do within the engagement group to look at longstanding issues.”

Earlier this month, the union also reached a settlement for its psychologists, with similar pay increases to the pharmacy agreement, affecting 670 workers.

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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 15-year-old boy has been arrested in relation to a fire that gutted a west Auckland BMX club last year.

The canteen at Waitākere BMX club on Glen Road in Rānui was destroyed late November. Police believed it was deliberately lit.

Police estimated the fire, which started in a bin filled with paper and other rubbish, destroyed more than $50,000 worth of property.

“The BMX Club worked really hard to set up the canteen and it was part of what kept them running,” Detective Senior Sergeant Ryan Bunting said in a statement.

“The alleged offenders’ thoughtless actions have done real harm to this community.”

He said 15-year-old male had been referred to Youth Aid.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Doctors and nurses at South Island hospitals have been struggling with clinical documents not being displayed or not being saved.

Health NZ on Monday issued a critical priority notice about service degradation of its electronic clinical record system that the South uses.

The notice at 12.30pm was resolved just after 4pm.

RNZ was told the example of a doctor losing some patient discharge summaries that they then had to recall and do again.

Someone familiar with the situation said the doctor talked about “the devastation of how much information has been lost that he has to re enter [and] time for which he does not have”.

“It’s all very well to have plans, intentions and work-around but when this is a daily issue it becomes very difficult, demoralising and dangerous. Who’s to say this House Officer is going to recall all that needs to go into the discharge summaries when he gets back to them?”

Health NZ has been approached for comment.

‘Fixing longstanding issues’

This follows at least four major IToutages at public hospitals last month.

In some, clinicians lost access to patient records that tracked medication and lab results.

Health NZ’s acting chief information officer Darren Douglass recently wrote to staff that “we are investing more than $200 million this year in essential upgrades to our core digital infrastructure and the systems people rely on”.

That would include replacing outdated hardware and “fixing longstanding issues that have built up over time”.

The $200m was from existing expenditure made up of depreciation funded investments (for example, lifecycle replacements and upgrades) and Crown expenditure (the drawdown of the balance of funding allocations from Budget 2021, 2022, and 2025), Health NZ said.

In 2024 about $300m was cut from its data and digital spending and scores of jobs.

‘The impact can be serious and immediate’

An internal memo about trying to improve the response when IT failed said, “when something fails, especially at scale, the impact can be serious and immediate: disrupting care, delaying treatment, or stalling vital work”.

Health NZ has repeatedly told the public it had workarounds and plans to protect patient care during outages.

It also said three of the four outages in January involved outside vendors, and it was working with them to speed up the response.

This had echoes internally, according to the memo late last month with reference to clinicians having trouble calling for IT help:

“Digital Services has listened to your feedback that it’s not always clear what to do, navigating support channels can be confusing, and response times have been lengthy.

“We’ve made changes to how incidents are prioritised, managed, and communicated.”

Work was going on to speed up the IT service desk response from three minutes to under two, set up a single 0800 number for the service desk, and put out a user guide so staff would know “what channels should you use”.

Health NZ told RNZ last week it was moving from regional IT service desks to a national model so support was clearer and more consistent.

It also said, “When there is a significant IT incident, our priority is restoring services safely and supporting clinical teams to continue care.

“We have established response and escalation processes in place, and we draw on expertise from across the country and our vendors to resolve issues as quickly as possible. Patient safety remains the central focus throughout.”

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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 washout at a single lane bridge has completely cut off several settlements in southern Wairarapa, including Lake Ferry and Cape Palliser.

Torrential rain, which began on Sunday night, caused widespread flooding in rural and coastal areas, but the already isolated communities are now completely cut off, after the Lake Ferry Road bridge over the Turangaui River fell away overnight.

The bridge is the only access by road to communities in Lake Ferry, and along the Cape Palliser coast, such as Whāngaimoana and Ngawi.

South Wairarapa District Council said the the bridge was located between Warrens Road and the junction with Cape Palliser Road.

“The bridge is only one lane and is the main access route to Lake Ferry and Cape Palliser. This means those communities cannot currently be reached by road.

“Road crews and contractors are on site working urgently to repair the damage and reopen the road. The road is expected to reopen later this afternoon.”

Pirinoa Station farmer Guy Didsbury told Morning Report the bridge had been “gouged out” and following a wellfare check on a neighbour, Whāngaimoana Beach local Terry Shubkin went to see the damage for herself.

She said a four-wheel drive was necessary before even reaching the bridge.

“But even if you could pass that, you get to the bridge and the bridge itself is washed out.

“There’s about a three-metre gap.”

Despite the washout, Shubkin wasn’t too concerned about being trapped.

“We are lucky compared to other people, we are well set-up here.

“We have lost our water pump, but we do have a 10,000L tank here I just have to figure out how to get the freshwater out of it.”

Shubkin said other residents had floodwaters right through their properties – “they’re not so lucky”.

The storm itself was “pretty rough and scary” when it hit on Sunday night, she said with rising floodwaters stopping just two inches shy of the house.

“We do flood, but this is the worst I’ve seen in 23 years.”

Shubkin said power had since returned and she was impressed with Civil Defence on Monday who were undertaking door-knocks when the weather was still severe.

“When the storm was … still quite bad they actually came down the street a couple of times to check on people.”

Wairarapa Emergency Operations Centre Controller, Simon Taylor said the main priority on Tuesday was to establish communication with rural and coastal communities and understand their needs.

A reconnaissance helicopter flight on Monday was turned around due to bad weather.

It flew from Masterton to Lake Ferry and Cape Palliser, but the severe weather prevented its flight over Tora, Flat Point, Riversdale, Castlepoint and Mataikona.

He said food had been delivered to some rural communities in South Wairarapa by emergency services in four-wheel drives.

He understood people were “tired and frustrated,” particularly where power and water supplies had been disrupted and asked people to stay safe and check on their neighbours.

“One of the key things in the Wairarapa, we are a community that looks after ourselves and our neighbours.”

On Tuesday morning, Powerco said 1148 homes were still without power across Wairarapa, down from 3300 on Monday evening.

A boil water notice remained in place for Pirinoa following the inundation of the water treatment plant.

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