Sir Ian Taylor: Chest pains, a hospital visit, and reflections on modern-day NZ

OPINION

Dear politicians,

I spent a week last month in 40 degrees of heat in Dallas, Texas, at the launch of Major League cricket.

My only connection with New Zealand was what I was seeing
and reading in our media – and it has been depressing.

In the place I work every day back home, I am always surrounded by people who have never lost their mojo, people who have seen the power of bringing different cultures together, with respect and understanding, people who see neurodiversity as a gift that we have all benefitted from, people who believe that a true liveable wage should be the basis of every business, people who understand and appreciate the investments that have been made, and the risks that have been taken, to benefit us all.

People who increasingly listen to what you call political discourse, and are in despair.

If I thought it was bad at home – try catching up on it from Texas.

Together, you paint the most depressing vision of the country I love.

The week before heading out on this trip, I found myself injected (no pun intended) into the health system.

It came from a series of chest pains which my daughter-in-law, who is a doctor, thought I should get checked at the Silverdale Health clinic, next to the swimming pool where I was going to watch my 3-year-old moko (grandchild) swimming.

I fully expected to be back with them before she had finished her lesson.

I didn’t see them for another eight hours.

That seems to increasingly be the story we hear. More hospital delays, more people parked up in ambulances, in corridors, in car parks, or tragically dying because no one even saw them.

What I experienced, and more importantly what I learned, made this the most valuable time I have spent anywhere for some time.

It is not the people in the system that is failing us. It is the system itself.

And that, Members of Parliament, is your responsibility.

And none of you are offering us anything that looks remotely like a vision for health.

I was transferred from Silverdale to North Shore Hospital by two young paramedics who were simply amazing.

On arrival they wheeled me into an already-crowded facility – later in the day the doors would be locked because they couldn’t take any more ambulance patients. On reporting that I needed an ECG, my paramedic was told that there was no one free to give me one at that time. Her response was immediate. “Show me the machine – I can do this.”

Reminds me of a slogan I once heard, “Let’s do this”. Ring a bell anyone?

So, for hours I sat in the ambulance emergency area where the queues kept growing, knowing that through the wall was the public A&E where people there would have to wait for us to be treated and given rooms first.

Then the doors were locked. “Keep the patients in the ambulances outside please.”

Through all of this, I watched amazing staff doing everything they could with a system that was failing them as much, if not more, than it fails us, the public, the taxpayers, the people who pay you to give these people what they need.

I had time to chat with some of them.

One, a mother of a 3-year-old, the same age as my moko at the swimming lessons, explained how hard it was to give her daughter the attention, love and care she needed after her 12-hour shift. She was simply exhausted.

And this isn’t any 12-hour shift.

I do 12-hour shifts at the golf. I was doing it in Texas at the cricket. But no one is sitting on a chair beside me saying: “Please, just let me die.” No one is laid out on a gurney having suffered a stroke, with her husband beside her, holding her hand, struggling to understand. No one is lying on a gurney confused, lost, shaking, and not understanding why he wasn’t being treated in a hospital room after arriving four hours ago.

And through all of this, I observe staff who are doing everything they can. I noticed that none seemed to take breaks – if they did, they were usually 10 to 15-minute sessions that always began with, “Is it okay if I shoot away for a quick break?”

Then I see the stuff you call political debate!

From one side – “what’s all this Māori s*** we have to put up with” – to the other side, where every discussion begins with blame being placed on Pākehā colonialists from our past.

From those who refuse to acknowledge the power of te reo, to those who refuse to even translate te reo so that those of us in the room can understand and take pleasure from what is being said.

From those who think they should keep every dollar they earn as “hard-working Kiwis” whilst ignoring the fact that the mother who works two to three jobs a day, or night, just to feed her kids, is arguably “a harder-working Kiwi.”

From those who believe we should tax those “rich people” and give the money to them to spend with no accountability at all, to those of you who believe you should cut taxes from those of us who can afford to pay it as part of the social contract we need to make this a better place for all.

What does give me hope is that there are people out there who realise that if they don’t get stuff done, it will never get done.

I want to share one example with you that I picked up today on LinkedIn. It is six and a half minutes long. These are the people I would love you all to start talking to, and about. These are people with minimal resources, compared to you, who are simply getting stuff done, because it needs to be done.

Chris, Christopher, David, Marama, James, Chlöe, Debbie, Rawiri, Winston and Raf, if you haven’t visited these people in Ruatōria, then you should make the journey. Perhaps you could all do it in the same bus and try talking to each other.

There are countless others examples of what is happening in Ruatōria – but this one is relevant right here, right now.

Now there’s a slogan for you: “Right Here, Right Now.”

Oh – and if any of you are concerned – I was cleared on those chest pains.

But the other huge lesson for me was I didn’t need to have taken up that space. There are technology companies right across Aotearoa that can already start to take the pressure off our crowded hospitals and make life easier, and better, for everyone.

Stand by for another letter on that.

Sir Ian Taylor is the founder and managing director of Animation Research.