A letter emailed to Premier Berejiklian 11

An almost unbelievable decision” – a letter emailed to Premier Berejiklian on 30 April, 2021.

We’ll let you know if we get a reply.

Regrettably, we are yet to get any evidence that emails like this don’t go straight into the trash!

Email us at info@questionsmisc.info

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Premier Berejiklian – dealing with 6

In this post, you will see that, on 4 Aug. 2020, such a long letter was sent to Premier Berejiklian, raising what to us what is an incredibly important issue – but it could be questioned, “How could you expect her to respond to all the emails she would be getting – she would be SO busy?

One of the things we believe, (and we’re trying to get others to believe as well,) is that, more and more, the political parties that get elected to power will be the ones that provide the best responses to emails sent them, particularly emails sent to their leaders – so that, in a sense, how they do it, is their problem! But certain principles apply.

We’ve had SO much experience ourselves in employing people from which we’ve learnt certain things – we could almost write a book!

That there aren’t many good people out there – but that there are more good people than there are good jobs.

That the best people tend to be under rewarded, and those who are not the best tend to be over rewarded.

That there are potential employees out there who are a JOY! – people who we can find are doing a better job than we could ourselves.

We believe that Premiers, (and Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders and so on,) should spend 2 hours a day reading emails, and handing out the job of responding to them to people who are a JOY!

We’ll soon find out whether Premier Berejiklian is doing things like this at all?

More later.

Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.

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Brad Hazzard, MP – NSW’s Minister for Health since January 2017 – dealing with 4

Back in 2014, a Mr and Mrs Amone went to the Fairfield Government hospital for help in having their baby, and got none – they had to try and deliver the baby themselves and the baby died. At the Coronial Inquiry into the baby’s death, Mr Amone testified that, when the baby started coming, he was shouting for help, but none came, until it was too late.

Use this link for more details we’ve set out on these events.

We subsequently sent a letter to Brad Hazzard, the Berejiklian Government’s Minister for Health, seeking to raise two issues.

(1) Has anything changed at the Fairfield hospital?

(2) Was there a government hospital in the whole western suburbs of Sydney that GUARANTEED that if couples went to it for help in having a baby that they would get it, that they wouldn’t have to try and deliver the baby themselves?

In response we got this letter from an Elizabeth Koff:-

Ever since we got it, we’ve been saying that it was the worst most useless letter we’ve ever received – that you would expect more from school children, that anyone with any intelligence would be embarrassed to have their name associated with such rubbish!

But we’ve just learnt that Ms Koff is on a salary of $599,000 a year – at least according to this paragraph that’s up on the internet..

Readers, has the whole world gone mad?

(We’ve always said/guessed that Sue Dawson the HCCC’s CEO would be on $500,000 a year – but perhaps she’s on more, perhaps much more???)

We’ve always said that the Berejiklian government has SUCH a poor record in it’s “people decisions” – who it appoints to what positions. And you couldn’t get a better illustration of this than that someone who writes letters like this in response to letters seeking to raise really important issues, is getting paid $599,000 a year.

Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.

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Is Ms Sue Dawson, the best person to be the NSW Health Care Complaints Commissioner? 5

Further to this post.

As we’ve mentioned, this was emailed to Sue Dawson, the NSW Health Care Complaints Commissioner, on 8 July, 2020:-

And that, on 17 July, 2020, we initially got this from Paul Spink, one of her officers:-

Of course, this was irrelevant rubbish that didn’t address the matter in hand at all – typical Sue Dawson and her people stuff! So this response was sent back.

Mr Spink replied with this:-

This reply was sent back on the same day:-

As at today, the 10 Aug. 2020, we haven’t heard anything further. To us, if in 24 days, Mr Spink hasn’t been able to come up with anything to counter the claim that Ms Dawson and her people eventually tell 98% of the people who lodge complaints with them about NSW health care workers, particularly doctors, that they have nothing to complain about, it’s not looking good that he’ll come up with anything, EVER?

To us, the claim is obviously correct – but perhaps we’re wrong, perhaps either Paul Spink or Sue Dawson will set us right. We’ll let you know if we hear from either of them.

Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.

For those wishing to donate to help continue and expand our work, use this link.

A 10 Aug. 2020 update: So, in the 33 days since the matter was first raised with Commissioner Dawson, we’ve got nowhere – typical Commissioner Dawson and her people stuff.

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Premier Berejiklian – dealing with 5

As we live our lives, the performance of our politicians is important, perhaps mainly for the influence they have in the “people decisions” that are made about who is to fill the various positions in government instrumentalities, perhaps increasingly so. Emails open up the possibility of making our politicians more accountable to us the people, and for us, the people, to vote for those who we feel are the most accountable to us the people.

Shown below is an email just sent to Premier Berejiklian, using her ordinary email address, premier@dpc.nsw.gov.au. We’ll soon know how accountable to us, the people, she feels!

In the past, similar emails to he have been passed off to others. In this email we’ve specifically asked her how she, herself, feels about the performance of the HCCC in responding to a specific complaint.

As we’ve mentioned many times, it now seems an established fact that the HCCC, under it’s existing CEO, Sue Dawson, at least 98% of the time, when we, the people, have taken the time and trouble to make a complaint about a health care worker, end up finding we’ve wasted our time, end up being told we have nothing to complain about – which is obviously outrageous. Readers, if this has happened to you, please, please, please, do what we’ve done  – email Ms Berejiklian asking how she, herself, feels about it. Remember, this happens to more than 600 people a month. Perhaps if Ms Berejiklian starts getting more than 600 emails a month, something MIGHT happen???


 

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Emails – changing the world 2

To us, one of the most interesting and incredibly useful uses of emails is in finding what people are like.

Many years ago we were given the advice that, if you want to know what someone is like, get them to write something down – and, of course, since then, emails have come along which are the perfect way to find out what people are like. As we’re always saying, “By their emails ye shall know them.”

Top management in organisations can use emails to help find out what their employees are like, and how people are getting on in dealing with their organisations, – that’s, of course, if they’re interested.

As people in various top management positions in the past we would have loved it if emails  had existed then.

In this post we set out the response we’d got from the Berejiklian Government’s Minister for Health, Brad Hazzard, to concerns we’d expressed about the performance of the HCCC under Ms Sue Dawson, in emails sent to both Premier Berejiklian and a local MP, who’d both passed them onto Mr Hazzard. To us, it’s a 1 out of 10 response, at best – for reasons we’ve set out in considerable detail in this post, we’d be interested to know how it comes over to any of our readers. SO many questions.

We were going to say that amongst the questions it raised were, (1) did Minster Hazzard agree that the response we’d got wasn’t very good, or was he happy with it, that it was up to his standards? and, (2) if he wasn’t happy with it, was it because the person or people who had put it together weren’t up to the task? and, (2) if this was the cause, was it because the person who had made the “people decision” that they were up to the task, not up to the task? and, (3) and if it was Minister Hazzard, was/is he up to the task? and, (4) if  it was decided that he was up to the task, when he may not have been, was Premier Berejiklian, who presumably would have had a big say in the “people decision” to make Mr Hazzard her government’s Minister for Health in the first place, not up to the task?

But then, almost by accident, we learnt that Minister Hazzard has as his assistant a Ms Elizabeth Koff, on $599,000 a year, no less, who, as we set out in this post, once, herself, sent us a letter which we’ve always said was the most useless worst letter we’ve ever ever received, and perhaps she was the one who was most at fault.

If we ever get anything from anyone providing help or explanations on any of these issues, we’ll let you know – not that we’re expecting anything.

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Emails – changing the world 1

One of the most interesting things we’ve ever come across are claims that, not so long ago, certainly no more than a hundred years ago, 50% of the people in the US were employed in producing food for human consumption, and now, with the mechanisation of the food producing industry, it’s 5% – people sitting in air-conditioned cabins on huge tractors pulling 50 furrow ploughs, and so on, replacing people walking behind horses pulling single furrow ploughs, with the horses needing to eat almost as much food as they helped produce, which has obviously released 45% of the people in the US to other things, perhaps better things.

But what we find almost more interesting, and, while it’s hard to compare the two, to us, emails have as much potential, if not more potential, to change the world as the huge tractors and so on have done – it could be called “the mechanisation of knowledge and information.”

They have so much potential to change the world for the better, above all to make our lives better, everywhere we look, about which we feel we could almost write a book – yet, we are constantly mystified, flabbergasted, by how slowly their use is catching on. Although, to be fair, we also feel we could almost write a book on perhaps why this is.

Firstly, though, two good news stories.

For at least 15 years, we’ve been using Tiger Technology, based in the US, (who cares where?) to host our various blogs and websites, and these days, whenever we need help with technology, the first thing we do is send an email to them. We recently got a response from them which was of more help in 2 minutes than we got in 25 minutes from one of the so called geniuses, (ha ha ha! ha ha ha! ha ha ha!) at an Apple Genius Bar. Admittedly, they can’t always help us, but helping people with technology questions isn’t even a business they’re in – their business is hosting. And it never costs us a cent – although, admittedly, we’re good clients for them to have in other respects.

We’ve found that in dealing with Officeworks and Bunnings stores, that they are both subsidiaries of Wesfarmers subsidiaries, and that, although Wesfarmers is based in Western Austalia, (who cares where?) it’s management is highly interested in how people get on in dealing with it’s subsidiaries wherever they are Australia – it has an ordinary email address readily available on it’s website, info@wesfarmers.com.au, and they have people standing by to provide help to those dealing with Officeworks and Bunnings, at least

Obviously, neither Tiger Technology nor Wesfarmers are involved in what we’re mainly interested in, but to be honest we’ve hardly ever come across any people and organisations like them in the health care industries, even though we’re always looking.

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Email us with your questions on health care people and matters

Email us at info@questionsmisc.info with your questions on health care people and health care matters – we may be able to help you, or, more likely, refer you to someone who can.

Sending an email only takes a few minutes, we will always respond in some way, you can remain anonymous, and it will not cost you a cent in any circumstances.

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Dr Andrew Brooks Urologist – dealing with 8

A contribution put together with one of our readers.

I was referred to A/Prof. Andrew Brooks, Urologist, by Dr Chris Grant, a GP I’d been using for 5 or 6 years and thought was quite good, for help with the “frequency problem” I was experiencing – I was having to get up 2 or 3 times a night to urinate, something which, it seems, many seniors experience.

Brooks’ advice was that the problem was that my bladder had become more muscular, and therefor smaller, down to 200 mls in capacity, from years of having to force urine past partial blockages in my urinary tract, but that there was a solution – if I underwent a procedure called a TURP, the partial blockages would be removed, and I would be more or less back to normal within 3 months, certainly within 6 month.

Accepting Brooks’ diagnosis, I was SO trusting and naive back then, I underwent the TURP, on 13 Aug. 2014.

As a consequence, (1) I underwent an operation under a full anaesthetic, which always has it’s risks, (2) I spent 2 uncomfortable days in hospital with tubes running in an out of me everywhere, (3) I incurred costs of more than $6,000, even after Medicare rebates, including Brooks’ fee of $3,200 for less than an hour’s work, (4) I wasn’t helped in any way with my frequency problem, as Brooks himself subsequently admitted in writing, and, (5) I was damaged for life, in that I no longer ejaculated, being deprived of the considerable pleasure that comes from ejaculation in orgasms, which is ALWAYS a consequence of TURP operations, it just doesn’t happen sometimes, your semen is pumped up into your bladder with you not feeling anything, and it can’t be reversed.

It has always seemed to me, since, that if I’d been assaulted by a street thug, and, as a consequence, was damaged for life in this way, the thug would probably go to gaol, perhaps for a very long time.

I now believe that the main problem was that Brooks lied to me when he told me the capacity of my bladder had been reduced to 200 mls, and that, if this was a lie, the TURP was NEVER going to work – but he referred me to his nurse to investigate and report on the capacity of my bladder, (at a higher cost that a properly qualified would have charged,) and she obviously backed him up. I’ve really tried since, but I’ve never been able to get Brooks to supply me with a copy of her report, even though I’m entitled to one by law, and even though I sought the assistance of the NSW Privacy Commissioner to obtain one – Brooks just ignored the Privacy Commissioner, and got away with it! something which you can obviously do. But, even if I ever get a copy, knowing Brooks, it probably would have been fabricated to suit his purposes.

I’ve since carried out considerable research on the frequency problem, and Brooks is the only one I’ve come across who claims that it’s caused by bladders being reduced to a capacity of  200 mls in the way he’d described. It’s usually said that it’s caused by bladders becoming too weak, for whatever reason, to properly empty themselves during urination, so that they are full again in much less time than it used to take, about which nothing can be done – no big fat fees for Urologists!!!

In April, 2015, 8 months after my TURP, as I continued my investigations as to what had gone wrong, and why, I was told by another Urologist that the capacity of my bladder, then, was about 330 mls, about which two things could be said – firstly, that it would seem unlikely that my bladder would have increased in it’s capacity by 130 mls, from 200 mls to 330 mls, in 8 months, when I was in my 70s, and secondly, that if it had, on Brooks’ diagnoses I would have no longer have had the frequency problem, and I’ve got it, STILL, in 2020.

And, another thing – my fees to have my operation in the Westmead Private hospital were $4,110, when I’ve since learnt that, as a pensioner on the full pension, and without private health insurance , it was likely that I could perhaps have had it in the Westmead Government hospital for much much less, perhaps for almost nothing – but again I trusted Brooks when he told me that it would be at least 12 months before it could be done in a Government hospital. I’m sure that even now it could be established what the likely delay would have been for someone in my circumstances back in 2014, and that probably Brooks would have been lying, or at least exaggerating. (A recent HCCC Media Release on a Dr Francis Chu may be relevant to this matter.)

In other ways, Brooks showed himself to be fraudulent and a liar.

I still have the letter in which, 27 days after he’d carried out the TURP, he wrote to his mate, my referring GP, Dr Chris Grant, “He has had a significant improvement in flow rate since undergoing transurethral resection o the prostate.”

But there were only two ways in which he could have known there had been a significant improvement – if tests had been carried out, and no such tests had been carried out, or, if I had told him there had been an improvement, which I certainly hadn’t done, as I didn’t, myself, know whether there’d been an improvement or not, still don’t know to this day. But did this stop Brooks from making his assertion? – of course not.

And I still have a copy of a letter, dated 18 Nov. 2014, in which he wrote to Grant, repeating his unsubstantiated claims that there had been a marked improvement in my flow rate, and which went on to say, “Unfortunately the frequency and urgency is not resolved.” and, “I have prescribed Oxytrol patches.”

So, he was acknowledging in writing that the TURP hadn’t helped in any way with the “frequency problem” – when his mate, Grant, had specifically referred me to him for help with it. And I’d NEVER had an “urgency” problem!!! – that he said I had is another indication of how poor and careless he’d been in his diagnoses. After I’d gone to the trouble and expense of getting the Oxytrol patches and starting to use them, I happened to Google them. and the results indicated that they were “used to treat symptoms of overactive bladder, such as urgent urination, incontinence (urine leakage) and increased nighttime urination,” none of which I’d ever experienced!!!. Which I think is outrageous.

To continue the story, since 2014/15, four of Brooks’ henchmen/thugs, all different, have rung me, making all sorts of threats against me for the comments I’ve made on him that have been put up on the internet, telling me, amongst other things, that I owe Brooks an APOLOGY!!!!!

And one of them mentioned that from time to time Brooks made “contributions,” (perhaps more accurately described as “bribes,”) to GPs to help them in running their practices, which he described as a “norm” for the industry??? Of course, I don’t know whether this is true or not. But you would hardly think that someone speaking on behalf of Brooks would say it if it wasn’t true, especially when it would appear to be such a stupid thing for them to admit, even if it was true. And when I emailed his mate, Dr Chris Grant, my referring GP, asking him if he’d ever received any of Brooks’ “contributions,” not only did he not deny it, he blocked me from sending him any more emails. The possibility is certainly raised that GPs like Grant are referring patients to Specialists like Brooks, to continue getting his “contributions” – which seems much more likely that he didn’t know how bad Brooks was. You would think/hope that Brooks’ reputation have spread far and wide.

Since 2014, I’ve sent Brooks at least 20 emails inviting him to provide his version of things, which, of course, he’s still welcome to do, but not one of them has been even acknowledged.

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Geoff Lee, NSW Member of Parliament for Parramatta 3

A letter just, on 31 July, 2020, emailed to Mr Lee:-

We’ll let you know if we get a response.

To be fair, we have got some responses from Mr Lee to recent emails sent to hi, which we haven’t had time add to this blog – mainly saying that he’s passed our concerns on to Brad Hazzard, the Berejiklian Government’s Minister for Health, who, so far, has provided only one response, which has been typically amateurish and unhelpful – as we’ve set out in this post.

Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.

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