Health NZ board re-established by government
Photo:
RNZ / Nick Monro
The government is re-establishing the Health New Zealand governance board, putting current commissioner Lester Levy in charge.
The board was axed a year ago, when the government said it had serious concerns about oversight and a budget blow-out.
Levy was then brought in to lead the agency, saying his priorities were
reducing wait times and improving productivity
.
Health Minister Simeon Brown said under Levy's leadership as commissioner, Health New Zealand had delivered a strong financial plan, and a clear health delivery plan was now in place.
"He is refocusing the organisation on patients and driving progress on the government's health targets, which are seeing waitlists reduced," Brown said.
Brown said Levy would chair the new board for a 12 month term to ensure continuity of leadership.
He said he would begin a nomination process later this year for a permanent chair to take effect from July next year.
Other key appointments announced by the minister:
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter
curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
7 hours ago
- RNZ News
Gas leak at house in Feilding hospitalises one
A FENZ hazmat unit was sent from Whanganui to the house. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone A person is in a serious condition after a gas leak at a house in Manawatū on Saturday morning. Emergency services were called to a house in Feilding shortly before 9.30am. A Hato Hone St John spokesperson said four patients were assessed and treated by its crews. "One [is in] in a moderate condition and two in a minor condition at the scene, and one in a serious condition who was transported to Palmerston North hospital." A Fire and Emergency (FENZ) spokesperson said one person was found unconscious. A FENZ hazmat unit, "with a super-sensitive gas detector" was deployed from Whanganui, the spokesperson said. It arrived late morning and was being used to check gas levels and ventilate the property. Fire crews turned off the LPG cylinders attached to the house. The cause of the leak was yet to be determined. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
10 hours ago
- RNZ News
Wegovy drug not miracle obesity cure, warns weight-loss doctor
Semaglutide is a welcome tool against obesity, but patients should know the best way to achieve weight loss success. Photo: THOM LEACH / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRA / TLE / Science Photo Library via AFP A weight-loss doctor is warning patients not to rely on Wegovy as a cure for obesity, saying the newly available medication could be more harmful than helpful. Waikato bariatric surgeon Dr Rowan French said Wegovy was a welcome tool in the battle against obesity, but it needed to be used in conjunction with psychological, exercise and nutritional support. As with bariatric surgery, he recommended patients address the reasons they overate and the types of food they ate to avoid regaining any weight lost. "People need to know that it's likely, particularly for someone who's living with severe obesity... their problem is a lifelong one and, while it can be controlled, there's a good chance they will never fully be cured of that. "Without substantial change in their lifestyle - this is not just the foods they eat, it's the reasons they eat as well - without external help to understand their drivers to eat and nutritional help to understand the sorts of foods that they should be eating, particularly in the first 18-24 months, then the medications could prove more harmful than good. "Particularly by causing some initial weight loss followed by substantial weight regain." Wegovy contains semaglutide, an obesity medication that's a synthetic form of a hormone called GLP-1, which is made in the small intestine. Ozempic is also semaglutide and works in the same way, but is licenced for type 2 diabetes rather than obesity. GLP-1 plays several roles in the body, including triggering insulin release from the pancreas, and affecting areas of the brain that control hunger and satiety (feeling full). Gastric bypass surgery causes amplified release of GLP-1 (and other hormones) from the small bowel in response to meals, which switches off appetite. The release is cyclical, which means the hormone levels go up and down through the course of the day in response to eating, and goes directly into the gut circulation. By contrast, Wegovy is injected under the skin in a large weekly dose into the systemic circulation. "Here's the problem," French said. "We already know there is tachyphylaxis - the medical term for tolerance - that occurs with bariatric surgery as early as 18-24 months after surgery - there is a slowly waning effect. "We can be almost certain that the injection of synthetic GLP-1 given in large bolus will cause tolerance earlier and more profoundly than bariatric surgery. "In other words, as time goes on, the patient will get less and less benefit from the medication, so any suggestion some people should stay on it for life is unlikely to be sensible or beneficial." French said that was where psychological and nutritional support, as well as exercise to avoid muscle mass loss, was vital, but "infrequently available". "We know that weight regain is common several years after bariatric surgery, particularly if patients are not engaged in multidisciplinary follow-up. "We know that, when semaglutide is stopped, in most cases, weight is regained, but we can also predict, if a patient stays on it, they will develop tolerance, because this occurs with bariatric surgery, albeit later in the piece." French said people with a weight problem almost certainly had a lifelong disease. "We are generally born with a likely predicted adult weight, which - in large part - is decided by our genetics... things that have happened to us in early life [trauma] and, to a certain extent, the environment. "We have far less control over our long-term weight than most people think we do." He said long-term weight control was subconscious - it happened in the "primitive brain". "We can temporarily go on diets. We can temporarily override our primitive brain, but almost always this innate set-point... that we are born with dictates what our adult weight is going to be and it will drag us back up to that adult weight, despite going on diets." Waikato bariatric surgeon Rowan French. Photo: Supplied The aim was to control obesity, not cure it, French said. "One of the things we see that raises that set-point is what we call 'cyclical dieting'." Also known as 'yo-yo dieting', this is when a person loses weight on a diet, but regains it after the diet ends. "Our primitive brain interprets that as starvation and it starts to fight back, and most people will regain the weight quite quickly. "They will go back to a weight that was slightly higher and it's nature's way of putting more in the bank in case it happens again." French said, when yo-yo dieting elevated a person's set-point to a new, higher level, the brain in turn defends that weight. "So every time someone goes on a yo-yo diet and gains more, their weight set-point rises, so by the time we see people with severe problems who need treatment such as bariatric surgery, they might have done 10-12 diets. "Each time their set-point has risen and it might have gone up 20, 25, 30, 35kg over a number of years." French, who works in public and private, is speaking out, because he's concerned Wegovy has been sensationalised by celebrities as a wonder-drug. While he said the new medications were the best New Zealand had ever had for weight loss, he stressed the need to address the causes of obesity. One factor, he said, was the type of food people ate. French said ultra-processed food (UPF) caused a spike in obesity rates in the mid-1980s and what he refers to as "pandemic obesity" in the western world. "Essentially, you've got now a dominant food that makes up about 50-60 percent of what we eat, which is purely manufactured and designed to make us eat as much as possible. "We know from the very robust data that it causes metabolic disease, it causes depression, it causes dementia, it causes cancer." UPFs included most food that wasn't a whole food. "Whole food being what your grandma would recognise as food," he said. "Very simply, if it's wrapped in plastic and it's got one ingredient that you wouldn't find in a home kitchen, that's an ultra-processed food." The food was attractive because it was convenient, quick to prepare and easy to cook, and often less expensive. French said it was often soft and easy to chew, low in fibre and didn't activate the hormone needed to make a person feel full, so people ate more. "It's the combination of salt, fat and sugar that's always engineered to make it the most moorish it can possibly be." French, who's private work is through Tailor Clinics in Hamilton, said his patients learn about eating whole foods at least 95 percent of the time.
Otago Daily Times
15 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Shuffles continue at top of project
A fast-rising bureaucrat brought in to helm the government's reset of the new Dunedin hospital project has been dumped from the inpatient build, the Otago Daily Times understands. Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) head of infrastructure delivery Blake Lepper had fronted the $1.88 billion Dunedin hospital project for HNZ, including standing alongside ministers at press briefings and being described as ''senior responsible officer''. Mr Lepper arrived at HNZ last March from a management role at the Infrastructure Commission, but after repeated questions to HNZ from the Otago Daily Times about whether Mr Lepper was still senior responsible officer for the inpatient build, the agency admitted he is not. Tony Lloyd, who was removed as the build's programme director in November, has been confirmed as project director for the build. HNZ said Mr Lepper, who has a law and physics degree from the University of Otago, retained responsibilities for completion of Dunedin's outpatient building, and workforce and data and digital work streams, as well as other infrastructure projects. The period of Mr Lepper's leadership of the inpatient build was fraught. After piles were driven, no contract was awarded to build the inpatients building and ministers claimed a project blowout, and sought a reset. Meanwhile, sources moaned about HNZ leadership prevarication causing delays. The option of refurbishing the existing ward block, rather than constructing a new inpatient building, had been previously considered and ditched, but was reconsidered under Mr Lepper and dismissed again. Mr Lepper's departure from the inpatient building comes hot on the heels of other senior personnel changes and announcements relating to how the project is staffed, delivered and governed. Last month, corporate boss Evan Davies — group chief executive of gas and property company Todd and member of a new HNZ health infrastructure committee — was appointed as crown manager of the inpatient building project by Health Minister Simeon Brown. When announcing the appointment, Mr Brown said HNZ had ''struggled to maintain momentum on the project and identify a path forward''. Mr Brown, who had spoken in January alongside Mr Lepper at a press conference announcing the inpatient build would go ahead, has repeatedly stressed that Mr Davies now has authority to make appointments to run the project. In the press conference, Mr Brown said the focus was ''cracking on'' with the build. Mr Lepper's messaging in the conference was less clear. He said HNZ was committed to leading the project, but was also ''looking across government to get the support we need to make sure we can move''. He was ''really grateful'' for support that was being provided by Crown Infrastructure Delivery (CID), a crown agency tasked with helping government departments manage infrastructure builds. Subsequent to Mr Davies becoming crown manager, HNZ sent Australian construction giant CPB a ''letter of intent'' to hire the firm to deliver the inpatient building. CID, which has no hospital-building experience, will not be project managing CPB's work. A question mark also hovers over the future and role of the project's governance committee, the Project Steering Group (PSG), which is meant to oversee the build. Rebecca Wark, the former head of health construction for New South Wales, was the most recent independent chairwoman of the PSG, but HNZ said her contract ended last month and it was ''currently reviewing the structure of the group''.
