Geoffrey Rice
One hundred years ago this month New Zealand suffered its worst peacetime disaster and its greatest public health crisis. It had taken four years of the First World War to kill 18,000 New Zealand soldiers, but in the space of only two months an estimated 9,000 New Zealanders, mostly civilians, died from the pneumonic complications of pandemic influenza. Pakeha (Europeans) died at the rate of 5.8 per 1000, but the indigenous Maori population died at almost eight times that rate, or 49 per 1000. Doctors at the time estimated that about half the population caught the flu, and most recovered, but some small towns suffered almost 90 per cent morbidity and when there were too few able-bodied adults to organise care for the sick, high death rates resulted.
A blunder which amounts to a crime.”
During her recent trip to the United Nations, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern used her speech to recommit the government to making New Zealand the “best place in the world to be a child”, ensuring that:
Like a shorter, slower version of the great All Black John Kirwan, I have decided to speak up about depression. My life is fantastic and I get immense pleasure from my love of sport, travel and the amazing people around me. But here’s a simple statement of medical fact: I have experienced major episodes of clinical depression since the age of 18. I don’t know how that works, how the same mind that allows me to drink in life like an intoxicating nectar can also turn dog on me and drag me to the depths of emotional hell, but that is the truth of it. I do know that depression can afflict anyone, regardless of how good or seemingly enviable their life is, just as cancer, heart disease or any other illness can strike anybody, regardless of how happy, famous or wealthy they are.