Letters to the editor: Dismay at Pharmac’s response

A letter writer is dismayed at the response of Pharmac’s CEO Sarah Fitt to journalist and radio broadcaster Rachel Smalley’s emails.

I am writing to express my dismay at the response of Pharmac’s CEO Sarah Fitt to journalist and radio broadcaster Rachel Smalley’s emails about Pharmac funding and other issues.

Rachel Smalley applied through the Official Information Act for her correspondence. She was given a series of comments, personal and professional, a team response, some derogatory personal comments, and a written limerick.

For example, Smalley “has not much of a following”, is “a nauseating interviewer” and “intolerable”. When Smalley wrote of cancer patients funding their own private drugs and mentioned that they would have died without them - Fitt wrote, “Sigh...”

Her comments were described as “unprofessional” by Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall. Pharmac board chairman Steve Mahoney called them “unacceptable”. Public Services Commissioner Peter Hughes called them “completely unacceptable”.

In my opinion, Pharmac patients have lost faith in Fitt.

As a terminal cancer patient, I, like many others, have lost faith in her ability to meet patients’ needs.

Pharmac’s board has accepted an apology and “verbal explanation” from Fitt. But her surrounding work culture displays arrogance, and I believe she must resign.

George McGowan

Ōtāne

We get what we deserve

I heartily agree with the comments expressed by your correspondent Lloyd McGhie regarding the fickleness of human nature. It was indeed a sad night in the history of New Zealand politics.

Short-term or selective memory? Narrow self-interest? What poor?

It is said that we get the government we deserve. Well, it seems we got it.

Judith Drabble

Havelock North

A letter from the editor

You may have noticed we have tweaked the layout for our opinion pages on weekdays.

Hawke’s Bay Today has decided after many years to stop running Calvin & Hobbes cartoons.

This is to give written opinion pieces more space to shine. Under the previous layout, we regularly had to abridge pieces, and they were not a good reading experience.

To make the layout work, the Target puzzle has also been moved to page two of the weekday papers as we review its future.

Readers’ pictures will continue to be displayed in Saturday’s paper.

Regular local columns, local talking points and letters to the editor will now receive more prominence on the page when they run than they did previously. We welcome your contributions to this.

Chris Hyde

Hawke’s Bay Today editor