Kate Hawkesby: U-turn to bring Fiji Covid patient to NZ is a political decision

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge · Jul 29, 2021 · 2m

What we’ve seen with the transfer of this Covid patient from Fiji is very simple. It's not a medical decision, it's a political one.

The medical decision was made by the DHBs, the Director of Health, the Ministry of Health. The medical decision was no.

But then politics got involved. Helen Clark, it's widely asserted, (and she hasn't denied it), stepped in, the UN stepped in, pressure was applied, and voila, change of plan.

This is an embarrassing flip flop.

The request was initially declined on clinical grounds, following advice from three Intensive Care Units at Auckland's major hospitals…