I had a stark reminder of the difference between private enterprise and public service this week.
My daughter had her car interfered with last Saturday night outside her flat in Wellington. The handles were wrenched but it seems access wasn't gained, but the locks wouldn't work, and she couldn'tget into her car to take to a panel-beater or locksmith.
In Wellington for a few hours on Wednesday and with some time to spend I had a look at the car myself.
The keys wouldn't work for me either, so I begged a coat-hanger from the dairy owner across the road. He had one ready and waiting for me because the need to break into cars, legitimately in my case, is common in the area.
I found my old copper skills still worked and I was soon inside the car so off to the Honda dealer I went. It was hailing at the time, but a serviceman quickly got on the job, offered me a cuppa and while I completed the crossword, he took the inside panels from the door and replaced a mechanism the offenders had busted trying to break into the car. I was back on the road in 20 minutes and there was no charge.
Chester Borrows.
This compares with a story I had learned the day before from a grandmother raising her grandson. As an 18-month-old the child had been backed over in the driveway of their property and was dragged a short distance.
He was unconscious and with a face badly grazed, he was taken to hospital where he spent four days. He was released without an MRI or in-depth examination as to head injuries, and from then on problems continued to arise. Tremendous headaches, continued vomiting, heightened tension and anxiety, learning difficulties, behavioural problems, lack of an ability to concentrate.
The grandmother went back to the hospital and then to ACC seeking assistance from very early on.
At four years of age the boy finally had an MRI and then Cat scan. Some abnormalities were found but there was an argument as to whether they could be attributable to the accident or were congenital.
ACC referred the grandmother to the DHB. DHB back to ACC. Assistance was sought from the Office of the Children's Commissioner who referred her to the Human Rights Commission who referred her back to the Children's Commissioner.
Schools were sometimes helpful but the Ministry of Education not so much. Some assistance for learning is offered by Ministry of Social Development funding. Over a number of years various Members of Parliament and Ministers of the Crown have been communicated with, have held the papers for a while and then either pointed to another department or failed to reply.
Driveways ... beware of children when backing out.
Legal assistance has been obtained and lawyers have been involved for five years and there is currently proceedings in place seeking a declaration that ACC should take responsibility. A medical expert in brain injury sees the boy four times a year in Rotorua and so grandmother travels over three days for the appointment from Whanganui all at her own significant expense. Various conclusions have been made, ACC do not accept them, but will not engage as to why they won't.
The battle has been going on and now the boy is a young man aged 16 years. The court proceedings have been described by the court process as "non-urgent" and so there is no assistance forthcoming or conclusion to the battle. The young man is approaching a time when he will be able to leave home regardless of the wisdom of such a decision, because the law says he can live where he wants.
There is little doubt, and it is his grandmother's greatest fear that, left to his own devices this young man will stop taking his meds and will find himself on the street to be manipulated by others. He may well find himself in the justice system or in prison where an overwhelming number of our inmate population at 91 per cent have diagnosable mental health disorders or drug and alcohol dependencies or both.
The siloed thinking of government agencies is a continuing issue for those people trying to access services. If their circumstances fit neatly and tidily into a box, their cases are accepted. If not or there is a means of escaping responsibility by, in this case, suggesting illness and not injury, then the person seeking assistance is told to go elsewhere. We hear it all the time.
Why can't a public servant take the trouble to find the right person? They have the networks to negotiate the maze of government agencies far better than the lay person doing everything for the first time at their own expense and while trying to juggle the rest of their lives. The public servant getting paid to serve the public is best suited to help whether the circumstances are tidy or not.
Going that extra mile, like the bloke at Honda on a stormy day in Wellington, should be the default position of anybody in the service industry public or private.
