“The planning, clinical oversight and monitoring of the National Bowel Screening Programme (NBSP) prioritises numerous safeguards to ensure that screening does not negatively impact service provision for symptomatic patients,” a ministry spokesman said. Demand for colonoscopy appointments had been expected to increase by 20 per cent due to the programme roll-out, but had actually increased by 30 per cent. “It’s happened earlier than expected and right across the country.”
MATTHEW TSO/STUFF
Six DHBs were given the green light to roll out a national bowel cancer screening programme despite being behind with colonoscopy waiting time targets. The increased demand was driven by the country s increasing and ageing population, coupled with a greater awareness of bowel cancer, the spokesman said.
Monday, 21 December, 2020 - 12:35
Father Christmas faces a lot of challenges at this very busy time of year … but a positive bowel screening test was the last thing he expected.
With the big man’s festive duties due to start on December 12, the team at Whanganui District Health Board went the extra mile to make sure he was at Santa’s Grotto in Whanganui’s Trafalgar Square shopping mall and no kids were disappointed.
Glenn Horrex, 70, was looking forward to his gig as the big fat guy in red when the bowel screening test kit arrived in the post as part of the national programme which was launched for the Whanganui DHB region in October 2019.
A key point is what Canada proposes to do with the revenue from the carbon tax. It s going to be divvied up evenly among Canadians and rebated back to them. So people with low carbon emissions will be better off, they ll get more back from the rebate than they pay in tax. But the high emitters pay more, preferably a lot more. This is the model used by British Columbia for quite a while now, and it has broad support there.
Another key point is that a carbon tax directly targets the behaviour we want to eliminate. None of the monkeying around trying to hide it as something else, or setting up weird trading schemes that imply some sort of right to pollute . Just the simple message that if you dump hazardous waste into the atmosphere, you have to pay, no ifs buts or maybes.
Written By: weka - Date published: 10:37 am, December 12th, 2020 - 68 comments
One of the more useful things in recent weeks in the debate about housing is the clarity of Jacinda Ardern’s position,
Jacinda Ardern says ‘sustained moderation’ remains the Government’s goal when it comes to house prices, as people ‘expect’ the value of their most valuable asset to keep rising
…
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says she would like to see small increases in houses prices, acknowledging most people “expect” the value of their most valuable asset to keep rising.
Two things there. One is that the government has no intention of dropping or even preventing further increase of house prices.
Open mike 12/12/2020 thestandard.org.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thestandard.org.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.