Rights of healthcare workers are surely paramount
IN the process of helping someone who had a glycemic episode/collapse, my wife got a needlestick injury (his blood sugar testing equipment needle).
We've been informed by St John that there is no legal requirement/protocol to test someone for potential infectious bloodborne diseases should someone else be placed at risk; the St John officers are not covered by anything other than, presumably, ACC.
I understand that there are medicolegal rights pertaining to a patient's decisions to withhold their consent for investigations/treatment but would like to express my belief at how our ‘‘rights’’ should also come with ‘‘responsibilities’’, to ourselves and the communities in which we live.
As a healthcare worker, I find it distressing that we all have to rely on someone agreeing to a blood test when we are potentially at risk. I'm just hopeful that quiet and healthy New Zealand means that the risk to my wife is probably very low.
Makes one want to stop and think twice before helping a stranger.
Name withheld by request
Cartoon
REGARDING ‘‘Cartoon strikes bum note with reader, to be sure’’ (Letters, 21.3.20). Too bad that ‘‘reader’’ was greatly disappointed and considered the Irish cartoon offensive. I am of Scottish descent, a Protestant by faith and a registered nurse by profession. I am not going to be disappointed or offended if I see a cartoonist have a humorous dig at any of these.
William Christie
Gore
Perpendicular
ALAN Roddick (Letters, 23.3.20) has a very narrow idea of the meaning of perpendicular. Granted, one meaning is: ‘‘at a right angle to a plane’’, that is, vertical, but another is: ‘‘at a right angle to a line’’.
Chris Handley
Maori Hill ....................................
BIBLE READING: Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. — James 1.12.
THE Covid19 health scare is already causing hardship for many Dunedin and Otago residents. Many will lose their jobs or face living with a severely reduced income.
Could I suggest that both the Dunedin City Council and the Otago Regional Council show some initiative and immediately suspend their annual plan consultation rounds and announce there will be no increase in rates for the 202021 year?
Now is not the time for substantial staffing increases or the introduction of any new measures which will increase the rates burden.
Now is very definitely the time for both organisations to show some real leadership and spend at least a year living within their existing budgets.
D. Sharp
St Clair