Healthcare is like a box of chocolates…

If anyone wanted to examine the impact of migrants on New Zealand, fall over, break a leg and head to your nearest public hospital (or maybe just ask for a tour).

We had the unfortunate (yet strangely fortunate) need to visit one of New Zealand’s public healthcare institutions recently (in fact I am sitting here now). Our very young daughter had lost some weight so as a precaution our local doctor decided we should see a pediatrician just to be on the safe side. Our doctor incidentally is eastern European, although I couldn’t tell you exactly which part.

We hurried (at break neck speeds) to the hospital as new parents do and were seen to fairly swiftly. After a short wait in the triage area it was off to the specialist childcare unit, to wait in our own cubicle. A variety of staff checked in on us regularly and I am pretty sure a few of the nurses only popped in to visit our baby girl. The service was exceptional but that is the topic of another post.

The real point of this story is how diverse our medical system is in terms of the nationalities and cultures that make up the nursing, surgical and medical consulting staff. As I mentioned our doctor is eastern European and the nursing staff at our local medical clinic are a mixture of English, Kiwi, South African and Australian. I am sure that Kiwis were outnumbered about 8 to 1.

The hospital triage centre was no different. The admin clerk was a rather robust Irish woman or perhaps Scottish or possibly even Norwegian who called a spade a spade and anyone stepping out of the orderly line would most likely have needed to be raced through to emergency anyway once she had finished with them.

Our pediatrician was a tricky one to work out. Not a local but not from far flung shores either. Softly spoken and very precise I heard a vague hint of either American or possibly and Australian accent that may have been worn off from years of ‘fush and chups’ slang.

We had two nurses attend to our little girls various tests (yet another post topic), one was from the Philippines and the other from Singapore. Carmen an Susan were their names and they treated our little one as if she were their own. Mum was brave and dad didn’t quite know what to do. Watching someone extract 40mml of blood from your three month old child extract a range of emotions none of which are good for your blood pressure!

There was another nurse who we shall call ‘Bob’ who had more advice for us than all the parenting books on Amazon. He was well intentioned though and he obviously had a lot
of passion for his job. Funnily enough the one guy that talked the backside off a donkey was of course Kiwi.

So there you have it. The New Zealand healthcare system is a double layer assorted box of people from all over the globe. A system that runs pretty efficiently compared to most countries and where no one cares about the color of your skin so long as the bones get mended and the scars heal.

The world could learn a lot from hospitals in New Zealand. When you have a system that needs skills and that system provides a service that can save a life, ethnicity, color, religion and other identifiers are non existent. It’s a wonderful mix of people who in other circumstances might be flinging grenades at each working in perfect harmony.

Needless to say our little girl is fine and I felt ever so slightly more assured that we live in one of the best countries in the world.

My (small) space…

Travelling can be incredibly entertaining, and often it pays to ‘walk on the lighter side of life’ when flying, particularly if you have to traverse multiple airports across multiple continents.

I have just stepped off three consecutive flights, the first of which originated in Cape Town, the second in Johannesburg and then finally disembarking in Melbourne. Not quite home yet, but about 9 hours closer than yesterday (or is that today).

I love to observe people on planes, because the environment offers a wonderful capsule in which to capture people at their best, worst and sometimes strangest.

Here is a little snap shot of my ‘people watching’ during the flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg. There are more stories to come, but this one was particularly amusing.

In the seat behind mine sat a mid 40′s woman, obviously well heeled, in her Gucci and Prada sporting a late model Blackberry. This was possibly the only reference to a lower rung on the social ladder, as I consider blackberry technology more befitting the common folk than the elite (some may hate me for that). She sat down and within 30 seconds her phone was vibrating and belting out some strange ring tone, possibly one that reminded her of her youth.

She answered and the conversation that followed had me enthralled.

Apparently according to her, she was in a much better ‘space’ than she was the previous day. In fact she had left the ‘poor little old me space’ and entered the ‘confident and assured space’ (these were her words). I found this amusing as she was currently sitting in a coke can with wings, and I actually found it a little confined. According to her, everyone on the plane needed to understand the transition between these spaces, which involved a cathartic therapy session, her dogs being taken to the groomer and the purchase of a new pair of Prada glasses. All of these things had changed the ‘space’ in which she lived (apparently).

The recipient of this phone call was obviously currently assessing her ‘space’ situation and there was significant council from my blackberry wielding travelling companion. Her space (being the caller) was much more limiting, because she had a wayward partner, a delinquent son and an insufficient supply of suitably expensive clothes. Shopping, a night out with the girls (or perhaps ladies) and possibly putting the child into a ‘facility’ were the order of the day according to Mrs Blackberry who had just revealed, the callers marital status, parental and social situation to 200 other travellers.

I wasnt the only one aware of this very loud conversation taking place and the gentleman next to me was muttering words under his breath like ‘mad’ and ‘cow’ – obviously a Kiwi. I could see that his space was growing decidedly smaller by the second.

I then started to assess my ‘space’ situation, wondering if the ‘space’ I was in was sufficiently large, small or needed some adjustment. I was trying to work out whether I should buy a dog to groom, if my daughter who is 3 months may end up wayward or if I needed to go shopping, but the din coming from the blackberry speaker was incredibly distracting .

Not more than 30 seconds in to my ‘space assessment situation’ all of the spaces in the plane collided as the possible Kiwi in the seat next to me, leaned over to the seat behind and not so politely asked the woman on the blackberry to ‘shut it’.

Clearly the space in the plane wasn’t big enough for the both of them…I wonder if he has a wayward, cheating, un-groomed dog lying about the house?

Noise…

There is a strange phenomenon taking over the youth of today (well actually there are many, but this is just one that I noticed). I had just checked in to the airport, ready to go, moving slowly amongst the crowds to the airline lounge. Up ahead I could hear what sounded like a modern remix of a 60′s pop song, filled with various expletives and substituting words like ‘sweetheart’ and ‘baby doll’ for terms like ‘shorty’ and ‘b@#ch’.

I was curious as to why I could hear this, and wondered if anyone else noticed it (it appeared not). Slowly the crowd dispersed and up ahead of me was a young girl, who looked like she worked for the airport in some capacity. In her hand was the latest hi-tech smartphone belting out this rather disturbing song. As it turned out she was heading the same direction as myself, towards the lounges. In between me and this haven of tranquility, wherein I could escape the various definitions of ‘shorty’s’ and ‘ho’s’ was a lift. It was then that I realised that she was going to be occupying the same lift with me, which would entail 3-5 minutes of two people in the same space with very different music tastes. My first reaction was to offer her my earphones, thinking that perhaps she had not been made aware that these clever yet privacy giving devices existed…I had another plan.

I had a similarly advanced smarthphone, loaded with a variety of rather bizarre musical episodes. Not many people would admit this but I actually enjoy a bit of country music now and then. There is a certain honesty about it, although my friends would say that this music rates low on the awesome scale.

Nonetheless I had to move quick. I fired up my phone, navigated to my ‘Country Hits’ playlist, and selected a great tune by one of my favourites – Ryan Adams (not Bryan).  A particularly melancholy ballad about a ‘sweetheart’ and a ‘pick up truck’ – no references to short men or women. Phone set to loudspeaker, full volume and away we went.

The young lady in front of me was both surprised and mortified. The soothing tones of my mid-western country talent over-shot her cliche remake, and the lift was filled with the distinct sounds of steel guitars, banjoes and tumbleweeds. I wasnt sure what the resulting action would be from this young lass, but I would soon find out.

After about 10 seconds of Ryan belting out his tune, the girl swiftly reached into her pocket and grabbed a wire cord. Slowly but surely a string of ear buds appeared, and were swiftly introduced to her audio device. She plugged them in and then silenced her noise.

I couldn’t help but laugh (quietly mind you). She exited the lift, I turned off my phone and peace had returned to the airport corridors.

I guess not everyone appreciates country music?

Going home…

I have just spent three weeks or thereabouts on the road. I travel a lot for work, although not as much as my colleagues, and whilst it is great to see the world and spend time in different places, there is nothing quite like the feeling of heading home. When I say home, I mean to my beautiful wife and gorgeous baby girl. I also mean home in the sense that of all the countries I travel to New Zealand is more like a home than many.

Home is a place where you feel safe, secure and loved. It is a place where you can be you, where you can dream of the things for the future and plan what lies ahead for your family. It is also more than just bricks and mortar, but it is feelings, thoughts, friends. It is a space and time that you return to.

Although I am a visitor in many of the countries I travel to, I doubt that places like this could ever acquire the status of ‘home’, not only for me, but also for the people that live here. I consult with hundreds of would be migrants and often they don’t refer to their country or cities as home, but call it the ‘place they stay’. I don’t pretend to understand the mindset of the people I meet, but I can tell that there is a difference in the way we see our respective homes. People fear the streets in places I go to, their children are locked away indoors and their houses resemble maximum security facilities designed to keep people out. More than half the folks I talk to dont even know their neighbours name, let alone speak to them regularly and they are reluctant to venture beyond the front gate.

Perhaps I have a biased view, and perhaps I am spoilt by what my country offers me, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that returning to New Zealand is returning home, in every sense of the word.

In the beginning…

Oh wow so this is what a blog looks like…hey its big in here…love what you have done with this space…very interesting use of colours.

I am a self confessed, jack of all trades, master of none, which is probably why I have such an affinity with the 80′s cult hero MacGyver. The concept of taking nothing and turning it into something is pretty cool or as some of my friends my say, defines a level of awesome that only a few could acheive.

I enjoy anything that involves the notion of ‘tech’, whether it be IT, Engineering, Conceptual or Design.

Why would I write a blog? Possibly to exorcise demons, share thoughts, but hopefully to collaborate on a global scale. There must be other Macgyverites out there, or perhaps even people who share an affinity for creative and inspired solution creation.

P.S. I am also a very good New Zealand Immigration Consultant (my day job)…so I may have a few stories to tell there as well.