Heather du Plessis-Allan: Health NZ needs to scrap time-wasting measures

Listen, I agree with the ACT Party that Health NZ needs to drop this nonsense of encouraging staff to incorporate a prayer into their daily routine.

What is this? Are we living in the 6th century with the height of Christianity? This is very unmodern.

Now, the reason we know about this is because the ACT Party's been leaked an email that was sent to staff that says: 

"We encourage everyone to incorporate Karakia daily. To help support you with this, we have created some pre-recorded videos to learn Karakia."

Now, we don't know which staff are being encouraged, but let’s assume it's for everyone, because that's generally how organisations work when they roll something like this out - they roll it out to absolutely everyone.

So let’s assume that this also involves doctors and nurses and surgeons and anaesthetists and so on. 

You been a hospital lately?

Those people are run off their feet, they are so busy patients often have to wait half an hour - sometimes an hour - for a nurse to respond to something that they need.

You want a doctor to answer basic questions? You have to get them on their 8am round and if you don't - good luck to you.

Do we really think that people who are madly understaffed, who are run off their feet, who are having such a difficult time at work also have time to stop and say a prayer?

Come on, Health NZ, have some priorities.

What's more is that this is completely inappropriate in the modern world to force religion on anyone in a workplace. And that is what this is.

You can call it a Karakia to make it sound cool and fashionable and culturally aware, but it’s a prayer. And a prayer is a religious act. And I say that as someone who identifies broadly as Christian, not cool.

This is fundamentally one of the biggest problems with the public service. Across many departments, they have allowed themselves to get distracted by stuff like this, which is not their core job.

They need to act more like the private sector and just do the work - and forget everything else
And then, maybe they’ll actually be good at their job. You never know.

Now, it is worth saying - if you object to this, you have to be logically consistent and also object to the prayer at the start of Parliament. Because that is, frankly, forcing religion on people and wasting time.

I object to that as well, scrap them both.

But scrap the Health NZ prayer first, because that is wasting the time of people whose jobs are literally to save lives.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Together do for sea. Ellen, listen, I agree with the
ACT Party that Health New Zealand needs to drop this
nonsense of encouraging its staff to incorporate a prayer into
their daily routine. I mean, what is this? What are
we living in the sixth century with the height of Christianity.
This is very, very, very unmodern. Now. The reason we
know about this is because the ACT Party has been

(00:22):
leaked in email that was sent to Health New Zealand
staff that says, we encourage everyone to incorporate karakia daily.
Cut Kia is just prayer, so we encourage everyone to
incorporate prayer daily. To help support you with this, we
have created some pre recorded videos so you can learn karakia.
Now we don't know which staff are being encouraged to
do this, which departments, but let's assume it's everyone, because

(00:44):
that's generally how organizations work. When they roll something like
this out right, they roll it out to absolutely everyone.
So let's assume that this also includes doctors and nurses
and surgeons and anesthetists and so on. You've been to
a hospital lately, I have these people are run off
their feet. They are so busy that patients off to
often have to wait half an hour just to get
a nurse, sometimes an hour just to get a nurse

(01:05):
to respond to something that they need. You want a
doctor to answer basic questions about how a patient is doing,
get them on their eight am round. And if you
don't get them on the eight am round, bloody good
luck to you. Now do we really think that people
who are madly understaffed, who are run off their feet,
who are having such a difficult time in work, also

(01:26):
have time now to stop and learn a prayer and
then incorporate it into their day every single day. Come on, Health,
New Zealand have some priorities. What's more is that this
is completely inappropriate in a modern world to force religion
on someone in a workplace. And that is what it is.
I mean, you can call it a cut of care,
so you can make it sound cool and fashionable and
culturally aware of whatever. But fact is that is a prayer.

(01:49):
A prayer is a religious act. And I say this
as someone who identifies broadly as Christian. Not cool to
force your religion on someone else. This is fundamentally, I
think one of the biggest problems with the public service
across many departments. They just find they allow themselves. They
almost desire being distracted by anything which is not their
core job so that they can seem cool and up

(02:11):
with the play. I mean, they just need to act
a little bit more like the private sector. Just do
your job. They don't worry about anything else. Just do
your job. If you forget about everything else, you might
actually be good at your job. You never know. Now
it's worth saying right that if you do object to this,
which I do, you have to be logically consistent, and
you have to also object to the prayer at the
start of Parliament because that is also frankly forcing religion

(02:32):
on people and time wasting, and I object to that
as well. That's no longer necessary. Scrap them both, but
scrap first the Health New Zealand prayer because that is
wasting the time of people whose job it literally is
to save lives. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive.
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