From Ursula Edgington, PhD @ substack
NZ Health Group managed to continue profitable business during 2021-22 when all 2467 ‘vaccine’ mandate exemption applications for their staff were granted by the (anon) Gov Covid Exemption Panel.
I’ve written before about the NZ ‘vaccine’ mandates and exemptions. An overview is here, and here and more specifically I’ve looked at many of the impacted public sector workers, like the nurses, teachers, paramedics and also in our prisons. I’ve also written a lot about ways academia controls the narrative, which include the revolving doors of international Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). Here, I want to focus on an example of how all these topics – academia, PPPs and wealthy shareholders – fit together.
Re-Cap on ‘No Jab, No Job’
During the height of the covid era totalitarianism, it was virtually impossible for any public (or commercial) sector worker who was mandated, to obtain an official ‘exemption’. Like many stories around the globe, whether your application was based on health, cultural or religious grounds, ALL were dismissed in the unethical and illogical claim:
“It’s for the Greater Good”
Many of us already knew the mandates were anti-science, but it became more widely known in MEP Robert Roos’ great Tweet when Pfizer exec Janice Small sniggered as she confirmed the fact there was no testing for transmission (45 secs):
Health Forum NZ, the Nurses’ Professional Association of New Zealand, NZDSOS and NZTSOS and many other such national advocacy groups have pointed out, the gatekeepers of the schools, prisons, surgeries, universities, hospitals and so many other organisations, including the unions, prevented staff from even knowing what the procedures for applying for an exemption were, let alone submitting one on their behalf. As a direct result of this blanket policy and military-grade censorship and propaganda, many people understandably felt coerced or forced to get the jab, and were subsequently harmed, or even died as a result.
Exemptions were literally SO rare (even those who had taken one dose and suffered an adverse reaction, were tragically not exempted from having to get a second, or third), that many people assumed no-one managed to avoid the wrath of the BigPharma captured Ministry of Health diktat.
But then I discovered that at least 6,707 healthcare-related staff in NZ were granted an exemption to the mandate under the law. (This has now been revised to 5,216 – more on that soon). So I was intrigued to find out who these people were – and more importantly, how these exemptions were obtained.
It turns out, after complaining to the Government Ombudsman, in a long-awaited OIA response that I sent 11 October 2023 (Ref HNZ00030952), that 11,741 total applications for ‘vaccine’ mandate exemptions were received between 27 Oct 2021 and 5 Sept 2022.
Gold Dust Exemptions
Amongst the long spreadsheet of redacted items, one thing stands out: the repeated applications for multiple individuals (some will be duplicates for extensions) from the commercial entity ‘New Zealand Health Group’. The main shareholder, NZ-Rich Listed Doug Catley’s empire has accumulated many names (see the image below). All are involved in providing some type of community-level care for our diverse population, from mental health counselling, agency staffing or emergency alarms etc:
According to its website, New Zealand Health Group is the
“largest community health, disability and wellbeing group supporting over 30,000 people to get on with making the most of life in their own homes, communities and work places…”
And at the helm, CEO since last year is Jane Kelley. What was she doing prior to Jan 2023 you ask? Well, it won’t be any surprise to those familiar with the revolving doors of power, that she was at the NZ Ministry of Health as ‘Director, National Controller’ for the ‘Covid-19 National Health Coordination Centre’.
Jane Kelley in the revolving door.
In this recent Opinion Piece by Kelley from Dec 2023 she explains the benefits of PPPs in healthcare (it is, after all, a numbers game):
“Addressing the workforce shortage is an example of progressive collaboration. Working in partnership with MSD (Ministry of Social Development), we have successfully trained and employed more than 1000 new support workers, some who (sic) may not have considered the home and community sector a viable employment option. We’ve also set up programmes that enable people who are helping care for family and whānau at home, to use their skills to qualify as a support worker.” (my emphasis)
The ‘beauty’ of the PPPs (for people like Kelley) is that any detail about the funds collected by these ‘partnerships’ with MSD etc are outside the Official Information Act (OIA), and any questions to the Gov Dept concerned are often bounced back with the claim “commercially sensitive”. Hence the true extent of the exploitation and profits that Health Group NZ makes from tax-payers’ funds being syphoned into ambiguously defined ‘care’, is unknown. This is a global problem as PPPs and their leeches have grown in the impact investor financial sector.
Likewise, OIAs have failed to get any transparency about who exactly the people were at the top of the NZ Gov ‘Covid Response’ decision-making (apparently due to Privacy Act reasons). But it’s useful to investigate who this Panel MAY have included.
Looking at Kelley’s public career profile for a moment, we can see her Linkedin page lists her most recent appointment as beginning in Nov 2022, which supports this PR-firm’s announcement (stating she actually started her role in January 2023), which goes on to state:
With over 25 years in the health sector, Jane has held a variety of executive, operational, and project leadership roles. Most recently Jane was the Director – National Controller Covid19 – National Health Coordination Centre, responsible for facilitating the Ministry of Health’s initial crisis response to Covid19. This was a pivotal role that involved establishing and leading a team of 300 and developing strategic relationships with multiple stakeholders from the highest level in Government through to local communities.
I wonder who her ‘team of 300’ were? Any Whistleblowers amongst them perhaps? But this same article is bending the truth slightly, claiming that her ‘most recent’ role was at the Ministry of Health – or was it? Let’s look more closely at her Linkedin profile (screenshot below):
Fernhill Solutions is a consultancy firm which benefits from being a New Zealand Government ‘All of Government (AoG) Consultancy Panel’ (full explanation and directory here) in the following sub-categories:
“Business Change/Policy, Research and Development/Procurement and Logistics”
This status means it can effectively fast-track through any NZ Government tender process to obtain potentially lucrative funding/contracts. That doesn’t seem like a good idea to me as a NZ taxpayer, but it’s the ‘new normal’ of the PPP impact investment world.
Screenshot from the NZ Health Group website (as at 18/03/2024)
The Fernhill Solutions website is (conveniently) down at the time of writing this. But back in 30 January 2021 Kelley was indeed listed on the ‘Our People’ section of the archived version of their website along with David Crowley. But upon further investigation at NZ Companies Services, we can see the new shareholding company of Fernhill Solutions ‘Hapuna Holdings’, with Crowley and Kelley also as Directors. (They are also Directors of Hapuna Equine and Hapuna Developments). One of the last items posted on the Fernhill Solutions website is this poorly-written article (eg ‘Addition’ in the first line should read ‘Addiction’) about collating Public Submissions for a Report to Government…
Screenshot of the WayBack Machine capture from the Fernhill post (Jan 2020)
Up until Aug 2020, Kelley was apparently also a Director of Avid Support Ltd, a H&S consultancy business, based in Dunedin.
Edit to add an Addendum here 28/05/24. OIA responses have revealed that Kelley’s Fernhill Consultants were paid by NZ Government a total NZ$232,100 during the height of the covid era (mandate) insanity (Oct 2021-Sept 2022). Not for covid-related tests or jabs, though, but breast cancer ‘vision’ computer ‘modelling’ and surveillance (not the screening itself it seems). This opens up another whole can of worms:
So what?
To summarise, on 12 Nov 2021, the Ministry of Health established a Panel to be led by Sir Ashley Bloomfield who were to meet regularly, read and consider the applications for those Kiwis who applied for an exemption under the SSD Vaccination Order ‘emergency’ laws. Of the 11,741 individuals listed in the applications made, only 68% (8,051) were granted. And of those granted, most, 5,217(ish) were from District Health Boards (more on that soon). All 49 of the applications from Allied Health were declined. But a staggering 2,467 of those granted were not from other patient-serving, under-staffed, poorly-funded public sectors, but instead from corporate giant NZ Health Group.
Remember this was never about Public Health!
Jane Kelley was employed as a Senior Director for the NZ Government’s ‘Covid 19 Response’ by the Ministry of Health in or around Jan 2020. According to her Linkedin profile, she was undertaking ‘consultancy’ work (for Government) between Aug 2021 until Nov 2023 at which point she was appointed CEO of the NZ Health Group. This is the same company which inexplicably benefited from nearly a third of all ‘vaccine’ mandate exemptions, which allowed private healthcare provision to continue throughout the totalitarian era, inevitably pushing up profits for its wealthy shareholders with their private jets. I can’t help wondering what Kelley’s consultancy fees are, and her new salary (although there are some useful clues).
Worldwide, ethical lawyers are working hard to reclaim our Human Rights, that were lost during the covid era. There has been some wins like the NZ Police and Defence Force. But progress is slow.
Finally, it’s worth noting this excerpt from the Healthcare NZ Bio about the wealthy main NZ Health Group Shareholder, Catley:
In the past, Doug has been the Deputy plus Acting Chairman of the Wellington Area Health Board and Chairman of its Policy and Finance Committee. He has also been a member of the Council for the University of Otago’s Wellington School of Medicine, a member of the Medical Research Foundation, and Deputy Chairman of the Board for a major New Zealand bank (TrustBank), the latter being a Prime Ministerial appointment.
(It’s not what you know…)
Meanwhile, our qualified, loyal and experienced public sector workers, including desperately needed nurses, were unfairly discriminated against and declined access to even apply for an exemption, let alone be granted one. Like many of us, they are still being discriminated against today, as I explain here.
If you have further information about this topic, please comment or message me privately. The PDF of the OIA’s spreadsheet should appear below:
Appendix One
864KB ∙ PDF file
