Downunder in NZ we are in a nursing crisis, no nurses, and the govt won't pay nurses well so they are forced to strike, exacerbating the problem. We take in a

Downunder in NZ we are in a nursing crisis, no nurses, and the govt won't pay nurses well so they are forced to strike, exacerbating the problem. We take in a lot of foreign health care professionals but the borders were closed over covid. Not to mention the govt fired any "heros" who didn't get the vax. Even before covid my region was staffed by 'locums'. I never saw the same doc twice and one was visiting from California. Now we have a brand new hospital but don't you dare try to use it. It's some kind of neoliberal private/public experiment. You'll be charged for sitting in the ER waiting to be seen, and after 4 hours waiting with a laceration you're too swollen for stitches. If you have some non obvious sickness, you're only seeing an ED doc so they're just another level of triage so they're not really troubleshooting effectively they just want you out the door. My partner, in incredible amounts of pain (from as it turns out requiring a fucked ovary to be removed) was told to practice mindfulness, until she could see a nurse practitioner of ob/gyn in maybe 3 months. The GP clinic is inside the hospital but went from serving 1,500 to 12,000 due to the restructures.