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

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.

Originally Posted by Scotts

What's going to happen to people like me that don't have a regular health practioner that they see?

You can put down a local alchemist, naturopath or chiropractor if you go to them. Or if you are in a signs and woder church and don't see doctors put your Minister's name down.

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.

A doctor was asked to give his opinion of a patient mental health for FAL renewal. His reply was, he wasn’t qualified in that area and if they needed to know, they would be better asking a suitably qualified professional.
The problem they have is if they say your of sound mind and you prove to be otherwise by you actions, the police will put the buck/blame firmly on their shoulders.
It is wrong on so many fronts, they’ll be doing it with lawyers next

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

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.

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

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 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

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

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.

Plus acc, or if your employer is accredited the info for any current claims can be accessed by any tom dick or harriet at the outfit contracted by your employer. My last claim like that the physio on assessment put down 'can't hunt or use firearms' as part of my injury consequences and under the 'path to healing' section for where I need to get back to. That's emblazoned over everything on that specific claim now, for anyone who opens the case files to see and also has a lot of other personal info like what my job was, movement times, address etc etc. That was an eye-opening moment for me - not impressed to be totally fair but it wasn't the physio's job it's just the system info security and privacy sucks.

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.

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

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.

Why would it be on your medical record?