by Selwyn Manning

Auckland Healthcare has managed a budget surplus, a profit,inspite of a year of poor health-status records.

Auckland Healthcare manages Auckland Hospital, Greenlane, National Women's and Starship Children's Hospital, along with community and mental health services.

This financial year's before tax profit was $4.4 million, after showing a $24 million loss for the previous year. Much of this is due to Health Funding Authority fund injections and a noticed mild winter in 1998.

Meanwhile, nearby South Auckland Health has been plagued with record admissions at Middlemore Hospital and having to treat more patients requiring hospitalisation for serious illness than ever before.

Auckland health officers have also recorded a meningitis epidemic which they say is of "third world" severity. Rheumatic fever, severe respiratory disease and complications stemming from poor housing have caused concern among community leaders and health professionals alike.

Health advocacy reports show those living in low socio-economic areas of the greater Auckland region are facing high morbidity rates - low health status and unaffordability of adequate housing.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>