Never Enough

Fixing healthcare up to you? Don't you worry, smile on through.

However much I'm falling down
Never enough
However much I'm falling out
Never, never enough!
Whatever smile I smile the most
Never enough
However I smile I smile the most

Songwriters: Robert James Smith / Simon Gallup / Boris Williams / Porl Thompson

---

Today in Nick’s Kōrero:

• A death in the Emergency Department at Rotorua Hospital.

• A sad homecoming and a brief absence.

• Is this the management style to sort out our healthcare crisis?

• Haunting words and downward trends.

• How do you justify tax cuts when the health system is failing?

  ---

The Daily Post's headline reads, “Rotorua Hospital: Patient dies in emergency department after three-hour wait.” This one feels very close to home; I’d only been thinking of the place the day before.

I was born in that hospital, as were my sisters and my first two children, Alex and Emma. I can see the rooms and smell the place; I don’t imagine it’s changed much.

Rotorua Hospital. Photo: RNZ / Karen Brown

Waiting in the Emergency Department with a suspected broken arm as a kid. Antenatal classes when I was 19, watching some of the expectant mums light up as soon as they got outside. Changing a nappy in the car park, in the boot of my mate’s car. Or sitting alone with the body of my first wife’s grandmother when I was 20.

---

If you’d like to read further, please subscribe. Your support is very much appreciated and important to this kōrero. Without subscriptions, I cannot bring this writing to you.

---