Health n***s f*** over kids with cancer

The Herald reports:

Counties Manukau Health has dropped plans for a Ronald McDonald House for families of Middlemore Hospital patients after its public health specialists reportedly opposed links with the fast food giant.

Yes it is far more important to stigmatise McDonalds than support families with kids with cancer!!!

This shows how twisted and loathing some of those in the public health field have got. They hate so much what they see as big corporates that they put this ahead of everything else.

Food and nutrition writer and Herald on Sunday columnist Niki Bezzant said: “I have seen how the Ronald McDonald House at Auckland Hospital works and it’s a pretty amazing place and there’s really no hint of the influence of fast food there except that [McDonald’s] put up the money to pay for [the facility].

“I don’t think it’s intended to promote fast food to people who have got kids in hospital.”

It’s not. I have friends who have had kids with cancer and the Ronald McDonald Houses have made a massive difference to their ability to be close to their children and support them through truly wretched times.

In a statement the DHB said its executive had considered the approach from Ronald McDonald “very carefully, as proposals of this nature can be very divisive with staff and public alike”.

“On balance, we decided to take the advice of our public health team of doctors and to respectfully decline taking discussions further. We sincerely thank Ronald McDonald House Charity for their offer.”

This really makes my blood boil. It is beyond appalling. They put the welfare of kids with cancer second.

Bezzant said Ronald McDonald House provided a place for parents to go during a really stressful time. “It makes life pretty tough for parents from out of the area or from a long way away who have got kids in hospital because there is nothing for them in the hospitals, they have to sleep on the floor in the rooms and things like that.”

The first Kiwi Ronald McDonald House opened in Wellington in 1991 and the charity now operates two Ronald McDonald Houses in Auckland and one each in Wellington and Christchurch. It has other rooms and services across the country, too. “Last year alone we supported over 3700 families and provided over 41,000 nights of accommodation,” Howett said.

It is a truly wonderful service in the places that have it. But I guess Counties Manukau thinks it is more important that the name Ronald McDonald is hidden from children than it is to support the families of children with cancer.