Ripper year cut off at the knees

It felt like my personal COVID infection was the final insult 2022 could fling at me

"Welcome to 2023. It’s going to be a ripper.” Those were the words I writ large on our office whiteboard, the first day back after our four-week summer hiatus.

For me, it truly was a hiatus. After three years of avoiding it, I tested positive for COVID-19 on the first day of my holiday, and my summer plans for biking and hiking were set aside for occasional floating and sensible rest and recovery, albeit mostly in the embrace of our canvas tent.

It felt like my personal COVID infection was the final insult 2022 could fling at me.

This year was going to be better.

So, close to eight weeks into the year, ripper it has been in one sense, but not as I was anticipating.

Our team was yellow-stickered out of our office after the Auckland Anniversary weekend flooding and then along came Cyclone Gabrielle. We mostly escaped significant physical damage but mentally, like everyone else, we are reeling at the images of the damage done to the homes and livelihoods of so many people and the heartbreaking loss of life.

Such scenes of devastation usually beam in from across the Tasman or the Pacific. Instead, we were often reporters with nothing to report other than we could not get hold of people in Hawke’s Bay or Tairāwhiti.

The fragility of communication was revealing.

The impact of these recent climate events goes beyond the tragic loss of life and landscape.

We know finance minister Grant Robertson is looking again at this year’s Budget in light of the new costs to the Government arising from cyclone emergency support and repairs, and the likely reduced tax take from businesses affected.

Vote Health has done well in the past few years. We know it needs to do better. I now suspect we will be grateful if it holds its own.

More immediate than concerns over the Budget is the growing prospect of a measles outbreak.

New Zealand is not alone in this.

According to the WHO website, over 61 million doses of measles-containing vaccine were postponed or missed due to COVID-19-related delays in supplementary immunisation activities.

There are currently sizeable outbreaks of measles in India, Indonesia and countries in Africa.

Just like New Zealand, Canada is watching, fingers crossed, that a recent imported case does not spell the start of something bigger.

Attempts were being made to rectify our immunisation shortcomings, but then COVID took centre stage and shifted our attention away from routine immunisation.

It is likely a measles outbreak will be the first real test for the redesigned public health regime.

In the wake of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022, we have a Public Health Agency sitting inside the Ministry of Health with quite a lot to do.

The agency does not commission or deliver services but is described as the lead for all public health and population health strategy, policy, regulatory intelligence, surveillance and monitoring.

In addition, we have a National Public Health Service, the amalgamation of the former regional public health services and more, sitting inside Te Whatu Ora; and a Public Health Advisory Committee providing independent advice to the health minister, the Public Health Agency and Te Whatu Ora.

Throughout the material describing these new bodies, there is a huge emphasis on equity. Immunisation will prove a more than adequate testing ground of the authenticity of that commitment.

It feels like quite a crowded space, the new public health regime; the key will be knowing who’s responsible for what and who is making the decisions on priorities and spending.

Knowing where the buck stops ahead of an outbreak would be grand.