Efforts to get a copy of the five year contract for services at Thames hospital have revealed that the contract does not yet appear to exist.

Green Party MP Jeanette Fitzsimons contacted the hospital on July 12 to ask for a copy of the contract, to see what services it provided. She has still not been able to get a copy.

"I was astonished to find that hospital manager Jacquie Mitchell had not seen it herself and referred me to Health Waikato.

"Health Waikato doesn't have it either and said the documentation had not been finalised but was expected mid-August.

"They referred me to the Health Funding Authority to enquire about its progress but after more than a week they have not returned my call.

"I have to ask, are Thames people being conned? Clearly if the contract does not exist yet it has not been signed, despite announcements that it has. We should not get too excited about what can only be a decision in principle until the details are available to be scrutinised."

In recent weeks, National MP Murray McLean has issued several statements publicising a new contract for the hospital. Without details it was too soon to say what kind of hospital Coromandel people might end up with under National, Ms Fitzsimons said.

ENDS

© 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>>