Thursday, January 04, 2007

The good ... and the bad

From the New Zealand Herald, Dec 19, 2006:

Minimum wage to rise to $11.24
The minimum wage is set to rise by $1 an hour from April. The increase will take the minimum hourly rate for those over 18 to $11.24. [Angela here: there is a different minimum wage for youth workers.] The minimum youth rate for those aged 16 and 17 will rise from $8.20 an hour to $9. About 110,000 adult workers should benefit.

[Angela here: with the current exchange rate, the US $ equivalent is about $7.85 for adult wage earners--more than $2.50/hour above the current US minimum wage of $5.15--and $6.30 for youth workers. This is a travesty, in my mind, in the US when one realises that 20 years ago I made a minimum wage of $3.35 and now it's not even $2 higher. Pathetic. This is an area that NZ is more progressive, they review it nearly every year.]

From the New Zealand Herald, Jan 4 2007, edited down:

Delays force cancer patients overseas [AR here: a result of a socialised system]
Increasing numbers of cancer patients face dangerous delays for radiation therapy because of escalating strike action combined with growing waiting times. Radiation therapists are about to strike for between one and four days, starting with Auckland and Wellington Hospitals next week.

Yesterday a leading specialist said the strikes would add to treatment delays, which have also been caused by higher numbers of patients, driven by expanding cancer screening and, according to union leaders, staff shortages.

Dr Chris Wynne, clinical director of radiation oncology at Christchurch Hospital, said yesterday that about half of "priority C" patients nationally had to wait longer than four weeks to start radiotherapy. The Ministry of Health says four weeks is the maximum acceptable waiting time for radiotherapy. Longer delays are considered likely to reduce the chances of a cure.

The average wait for a priority C patient in Auckland was 7.33 weeks. To date, 31 out of 131 patients had waited longer than four weeks. The wait was getting worse but had been mitigated by getting patients treated in Australia. Thirty-six breast cancer patients have taken the hospital's offer of overseas treatment, and the hospital has arranged to send 10 breast and prostate cancer patients every week.

Several other health boards are considering similar action because of excessive waiting times, which have reportedly reached 18 weeks for some at Palmerston North Hospital.
She said this had contributed to therapists going overseas to work.

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