Discussing about climate change and New Zealand's marine life

 New Zealand in hot water: the plight of the little blue penguins

Seemorerocks interviews Pam Crisp, a conservation educator based in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Pam is programme manager for Seaweek, NZ's annual marine engagement event, and active in her local community through Transition Towns Lower Hutt

A story about elderly care in New Zealand in the midst of a plandemic

Just occasionally we hear stories like this. Think how many times this is repeated and how many times the family do not have the resources to resist the depredations of predatory corporations.

NZ nursing home stops cancer 

therapy and sends patient 

home with pneumonia

They then try to extort $80,000 from the family

Pam Crisp

A friend's mother in her 80s was treated last year in Wgtn hospital for a very rare cancer. Once the op was done it became clear the hospital wasn't a great place for her to be during recovery, so the family paid for her to go to a costly Rhyman retirement complex where they were assured her needs would be taken care of. 

After a time there The mum decided to sell her house and buy one of the apartments on sale in the complex. All went well and she was still having follow up treatments for the cancer, Then COVID 19 struck and all that changed,  cancer treatments no longer available, and a declining level of care, then concern that the mother had been manhandled on several occasions. It was clear she was not wanted at Rhyman . 

The family were informed that their mother had pneumonia. So out she went. Happily, she was able to lmove in with one of her sons. When the family were moving her out of the Rhymans complex they asked for her diary, to be told by a senior member of the staff that didn't have it. The family pressed the point...their mum always wrote in her diary, every day......no way would it not have been by her bed, Eventually it was produced, revealing details of the less than satisfactory treatment she had been subjected to by several members of the staff. 

Shortly afterwards their mother decided to sell the apartment and remain with her family. Rhyman Health Care asserted that they would receive around $80,000 less than what they had paid for it not so long ago, on account of "damage". ....standard practice, we hear, in of these places..... 

Fortunately the family were far too savvy to agree with that and wouldn't have a bar of it, threatening to take the story to Fair Go. Rhyman Health Care promptly backed down and that was the end of that. The apartment was sold, the mum stayed on happily on with her family, and was able to pay for regular nursing care at home. 

This story had a happy ending. But how many of our elders jend up being ripped off and badly treated in these costly private establishments in their golden years?

See how these predators advertise themselves

Changes Down-Under - a small town perspective

Recently my partner, Pam returned home to Hokitika, on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island.

This is what she noticed.

Reflections from Hokitika

by Pam Crisp

Environmental Education Consultant

Last week I revisited Hokitika, my old home town, after an absence of four long years. 

The weather for mid-June was unseasonally warm, the skies overcast and sunless. 

Meanwhile east of the Alps in Canterbury, a severe easterly wind was whipping up a rain storm, bringing yet more flooding to afflicted Cantabrians - a reversal of normal trends.

Normally at this time of year you'd expect to cozy down under quilts and blankets for a good night's sleep. 

Not this time. 

My friend and I both complained of high humidity, of feeling hot, and interrupted sleep.

Hardly a trace of snow was visible on the Southern Alps, traditionally snow-covered at this time of year.

“Oh it’s just that the rain has washed the snow away- it’ll be back again with the next good southerly” was the comment from a local friend.

Noticeable from the beach was a huge rock barrier erected by the local council along the length of the beachfront to protect the town from increasing coastal erosion.

“Oh, it’s just part of a seven year cycle – we always see this. The sea comes up and then it retreats back” said another local.

Further south, local farmers and rural communities are still dealing with the after-effects of the severe gales that lashed the region in an unprecedented autumn storm, taking out thousands of majestic totara and kahikatea trees and changing forever the natural character of South Westand’s flood plain valleys – gateway to the South-West New Zealand World Heritage Area.

One thing hadn’t changed, through – the supermarket car park, chokka with cars and 4WD’s. New World Hokitika is the one-stop-shop for shoppers from Hokitika to Haast, and boy, do they pay for it. The lack of competition, and the cost of freighting produce in to this isolated region reveals an economic model dominated by large chain store monopolies at work.

A 12.5 % rates increase was recently announced for the West Coast, in an attempt to levvy yet more funding one of NZ’s most ageing and under-employed populations.

Kiwis - get down to the Coast and enjoy it while you can. And get in behind a campaign to get our country and our people on track to a more resilient future, and awake to the immediate reality confronting us now.