The NZ Herald has a story today on a study that found that 23% of a sample of rest home residents in Wanganui (NZ provincial city of about 45,000) are malnourished. It’s really a shocking statistic, but the story is even more appalling for comments attributed to Health Minister Tony Ryall. The article says –
Minister of Health Tony Ryall had not read the report but understood malnourishment rates were comparable with Australia and other parts of the world.
What? I don’t know if this is a case of an incomplete quotation giving a misleading impression of what the Minister has said, but on the face of it I have to say that I find these comments pretty disgraceful. The idea that a comparison of malnourishment of the elderly in NZ with the rest of the world has any relevance at all to how we should feel about elderly people in NZ being malnourished suggests an astonishing failure to grasp the seriousness of the issue. There is no world in which it is acceptable for 23% of the residents of 15 rest homes to be malnourished. One can only hope that Tony Ryall is the victim here of some very poor reporting (which actually would not be that surprising – this is the NZ Herald after all).
Speaking of poor reporting, writer Celeste Anstiss didn’t think it important to mention who actually conducted the study she reported or where it can be obtained from. She also notes that “aged care experts want a nationwide review of rest home meals”, but gives absolutely no indication of who these ‘experts’ are. I despair.