Thread: The letter about a renewed FAL comes to his GP.

Originally Posted by MB

The onus is on the healthcare practitioner in this instance, so not your concern, although you are required to inform the police of your healthcare provider details, so that could get tricky down the line.

Wife is a GP. This has caused some more eye rolling.

Keen to know what’s required from your wife as a practising GP what her obligations are when she has a patient whom she considers unfit to drive due to age, medication, injuries etc.

Does she make a notification directly to LTNZ who then go about a medical revocation?

Yes, she does. Not sure of the exact process, but she hates those situations. In some instances, people are losing their livelihoods, but they are a clear danger to themselves and others.

Sh1t oh dear, they are going to love this going forwards just for the shear volume of poaperwork they've just dropped thenselves in and they are going to be processing. In the last 15 months of being injured, I've had 6 GP's due to one going on maternity, 3 locums, a temp and I dunno how long the next one is here for.

And this is in a reasonably large centre, I don't know how people will get on in rural areas where there isn't a permanent GP and you work through a practice with a locum attending once or twice a week!

Added to the sheer crisis our Health Sector is going through at the moment as well from both Covid and Angry's DHB/Health reforms and Police so far behind the 8 ball on renewals I think we are going to see fark-up of magnitude 10 proportions. The end result of the blind leading the partially sighted.

Originally Posted by BSA

.......... I think we are going to see fark-up of magnitude 10 proportions.

We already have seen one when NZ Police did not follow their own proceedures and issued a firearms licence to some one who would have likely been rejected had proceedures been followed correctly. This person did something very very bad and then NZ Police and govt blamed and financially and otherwise punished a lot of people who were not even involved. All the while whistling "we are perfect.......trust us"

I always ask to see a locum gp as they actually read your file and generally helpful and follow up unlike my experience of regular gp's who are either on holiday/not working or only interested in removing the $60 fee as fast as possible and on to the next punter

Im ok,my doctor travels NZ to go in shooting comps in his spare time a lot.

They are not asking for a mental health assessment, they are asking if there are any concerns.

Originally Posted by MB

They are not asking for a mental health assessment, they are asking if there are any concerns.

Not in this case, it was renewal of an endorsed licence

Originally Posted by Maca49

Not in this case, it was renewal of an endorsed licence

In that case, I think the doctor concerned did the right thing.

Originally Posted by MB

In that case, I think the doctor concerned did the right thing.

Doctor is not very happy taking responsibility for the police.
My doctor thinks I’m a bit twisted, but I told her she’s worse than me, by a long stretch.

Originally Posted by MB

They are not asking for a mental health assessment, they are asking if there are any concerns.

Nope, they are not asking if there are any concerns - the question is basically "in your medical opinion is there any reason this person should not hold a firearms licence?". Average joe or jane doctor is not fairly or fully equipped to comment or consult on this, and I've scraped people bits up when they've got it wrong - and that's literally scraped the bits up. Not a nice job, and it's just one more example of how the system is fully broken through insufficient funding to ensure sufficient numbers of qualified people coming through to replace natural attrition of workers. Without that, burnout and feelings of insufficient remuneration for the workload jump hugely leading to more staff attrition and you can't fix that no matter what you try.

At the moment, shift workers are not getting the pay bump over day-only that shift work used to attract - and the shift work roles are usually unionised or public sector which means that it takes a lot longer to get the bump in pay to compensate for the unsocial hours back. Catch 22, when there's a shortage of workers across the board why would you do a night shift role that destroys your social life and body when the day shift guy down the road gets the same or more coin at a private outfit because they are more flexible when it comes to setting rates of pay?

I can understand what Police are trying to do, as they don't employ people who are qualified mental health practitioners to do an interview with every firearms licence candidate. But, there aren't the people (not even specifically qualified mental health practitioners) to do this. Plus, the consequences of stupid politicians making idiotic decisions without thinking about what happens in the years ahead ends up in the situation we are in now with a 10-year licence renewal bulge of 50,000 people all expecting an acceptable level of service and a renewal in 2-4 weeks. They learned from the firearms licence fu*kup when they went to 10-year driver licences and set the renewal off your x5-year anniversary so the system didn't explode. Biggest problem is now, some people are renewing on the 10-year renewal date at their x1-year anniversary, while others are doing it on the x9-th birthday. So, do you extend someone for 6 years and reset to the x5-yearly renewal or short change them with a 4-year renewal and put everyone on the x5 anniversary same as driver's licences?

Either way, the amount of work going on in this space is looking excessive and arguably if firearms licence holders are expected to be vetted to this level when the trigger event was a admin system failure of world ending proportions, then we as a society might as well do all dirver's licence holders as well as more crime and injury incidents occur from the misuse of vehicles than firearms.

This doesn't bode well... my local healthcare provider has abysmal administrative practices, and on top of that, I have never met my assigned doctor in person. Whenever I've been, I've been ushered through the nurses assessment area and have been seen by whatever doctor they have available in the nurses area. They are so busy that if I wanted to see my actual assigned doctor, I'd have to make an appointment three weeks in advance. My assigned doctor quit a few years ago, and my next assigned doctor also quit before I ever got to see them in person. I honestly could not tell you the name of whoever my apparent doctor is now.

This is also shit for those suffering a mental health crisis, as Rushy points out. They would be less inclined to seek help if it would likely result in their enjoyment of hunting or shooting being taken away. Though I imagine this has probably always been the case - the Police are just being more vocal in reminding doctors of their obligations.

Originally Posted by Rush

This doesn't bode well... my local healthcare provider has abysmal administrative practices, and on top of that, I have never met my assigned doctor in person. Whenever I've been, I've been ushered through the nurses assessment area and have been seen by whatever doctor they have available in the nurses area. They are so busy that if I wanted to see my actual assigned doctor, I'd have to make an appointment three weeks in advance. My assigned doctor quit a few years ago, and my next assigned doctor also quit before I ever got to see them in person. I honestly could not tell you the name of whoever my apparent doctor is now.

This is also shit for those suffering a mental health crisis, as Rushy points out. They would be less inclined to seek help if it would likely result in their enjoyment of hunting or shooting being taken away. Though I imagine this has probably always been the case - the Police are just being more vocal in reminding doctors of their obligations.

Doctors certainly have some concerns, the buck will stop with them

Everyone needs to realise the health system is in a piss poor state.

Having being a fal holder on your medical record opens up another window of data insecurity. Medical records are freely transferred and accessible to drs and practice staff.