More of NZs Revolving Doors of Power & Money
Public Private Philanthropic Partnerships (PPPPs): ProCare Group and Turuki Healthcare
I’ve written before about Public Private Philanthropic (or perhaps more accurately thanks to
‘Philanthropathic’) Partnerships (PPPPs) that increasingly are exposed as the foundation of covid era totalitarianism. In particular, along with others like , I’ve illustrated how senior figures in the NZ Gov ‘covid response’ were subsequently appointed to senior roles in commercial companies that profited from that response like Jane Kelley of NZ Health Group.Today, I look at another example of that corruption based on conflicts of interest, the revolving doors of power at ProCare Group, which includes Turuki Healthcare.
Let’s start with Dr Karl Cole, who in April 2022 was appointed to the Board of the Royal New Zealand College of Generals Practitioners (RNZCGPs). As a long-established (and previously respected) registered charity, its purpose is to:
“encourage, foster and maintain the highest possible standards for medical care within the scope of general practice, in order to reduce health inequalities and achieve improved health for all New Zealanders.”
Its income last year was approx. $36m. You can read about RNZCGPs continued evil harassment of ethical doctors who take their oath ‘first, do no harm’ seriously, here, via NZDSOS. And you’ll likely know all about similar bullying tactics employed by parallel entities worldwide, for instance recently in the US and Canada.
Having previously researched the toxic NZ workplace bullying culture that RNZCGP symbolises, I was interested to see why Dr Cole might been given his national ‘honour’. Let’s dig a little…
Currently, Cole’s a Director and Shareholder of Health Hub Holdings Limited, a commercial healthcare provider based in Palmerston North; a member of the Hira Steering Board, a Gov-funded smartphone App for patients to record their health information - including ‘vaccination’ status, of course. Cole is also a Member of the National Whānau Consumer Clinician Digital Council, described as:
“a link between the Health New Zealand Data and Digital Executive and clinicians, consumers, whānau, hapori and communities [which] helps shape data and digital technologies to enable improved and equitable health outcomes across New Zealand.”
Seems like award-winning Dr Cole is at the cutting edge of the NZs Digital ID roll-out then? This is already underway by stealth through legislation like the Australian’s ‘ban’ on under-16s accessing social media. Also, Cole is a ‘contractor’ for Spark Health – a $45m NZ Gov contract with Microsoft to deliver eHealth ‘solutions’. And Director/Shareholder of Papatoetoe Primary Health Care Limited another commercial healthcare provider. And finally, predictably (along with Assoc. Prof. Helen Petousis-Harris), Dr Cole benefitted from income from Pfizers’ Primary Care Advisory Committee:
As I wrote in the previous post about Revolving Doors,
“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 (and other PPPPs) 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.”
Importantly, Dr Cole’s Papatoetoe Primary Health Care Ltd is a member shareholder of ProCare Network Ltd. where Dr Cole was appointed Director in Dec 2023. So what is ProCare all about?
Why did so many GP surgeries toe the line during covid?
The ProCare Group includes ProCare Health (PHO) Limited which is a Primary Health Organisation (PHO) with charitable status and claims to…
“…operate exclusively for the charitable purposes set out in the charitable objectives. The objectives of the company are to promote and enhance the health and wellbeing of all individuals, families, and communities within Aotearoa New Zealand.”
But how accurate is that claim? Another ProCare arm, ProCare Network Limited is the largest co-operative of healthcare professionals in NZ with a network of at least 175 GP surgeries, all contracted to receive NZ Government subsidies to deliver primary healthcare services. In return, ProCare ‘provides services’ to GPs who are shareholders in the cooperative. Groupthink pays, so members must toe the line.
PHOs like ProCare are funded by Health New Zealand - the Government entity that overseas all NZs health services. ProCare’s ‘charity’ arm of ProCare Health (PHO) Ltd was established in July 2019 (the date is just a coincidence). PPPPs ‘risk’ is that all their income is from NZ Gov (us taxpayers), which for this arm of ProCare amounts to approx. NZ$900million since inception. These PPPPs make additional income for “performance management fees” which in 2020 were $4.5m. Although the latest annual report states Dr Cole’s salary is a relatively humble $26,000 so far (with a shareholding), the salaries listed are pretty eyewatering with over 80 staff earning more that $100k pa, and nine staff earning >$250k pa. This is the snapshot from Charities Services:
The reduced income from the covid testing and shots was clear from this years’ accounts but cash flow was up:
Dr Craig King, GP & ProCare Network Limited Chair, describes the ‘lobbying’ the organisation did to NZ regulator enabler, Pharmac, that it claims is beneficial to New Zealanders’ health and wellbeing. For instance:
“…we wrote several submissions to Pharmac. Foremost, was around vaccinating children in pharmacies where we outlined our view that we strongly believed that general practice, Māori providers and outreach providers should be the key point for all immunisation needs for children up until the age of four rather than pharmacies. Additional submissions included proposals to fund aripiprazole depot injection (details here) as an alternative antipsychotic treatment option and, lastly, we wrote to Pharmac expressing our concern, and apprehension around the ongoing supply shortages ofestradiol patches (details here) that was affecting thousands of women across the country.”
The mind boggles….
The benefits of being a member of the ProCare Network of GP surgeries include:
“special banking packages with ANZ, discounted insurance with Gallagher, a reduction in the cost of funded and un-funded influenza vaccines with Viatris, discounted business broadband and mobile packages with One NZ, offering Tier 1 pricing for practices with EBOS, making available discounted website design and marketing support services with AW Consulting, and providing a discount for Nabla Copilot – the virtual scribe tool.”
BTW Nabla is a new tech start-up and now “the leading ambient AI assistant, freeing clinicians from the documentation burden.” Nabla uses ChatGPT to help diagnose and treat patients. How convenient. Tevita Funaki ProCare Health Chair states:
“In the past year, we have begun to regain ground on preventive care measures such as childhood immunisations, smoking brief advice, cardiovascular disease risk assessment, and diabetes control – both in terms of blood pressure control and the management of microalbuminuria. These are all areas that suffered during the pandemic, so it is pleasing to see things slowly returning to where preventative care was. Of course, there is more to do, particularly as patients continue to present with increasingly complex healthcare needs and our practices need more support than ever due to the increasing financial pressures placed on their businesses.”
Turuki Healthcare
Te Tumu Waiora: ‘to head towards wellness and health’. Interesting choice of name. Maybe the opposite is true? ProCare Health Ltd., in collaboration with Auckland Health Boards, NGOs and other PHOs, tested a new approach for mental health care that aims for nationwide implementation. Te Tumu Waiora was launched in July 2017 and the ProCare-specific programme ran in the University of Auckland Student Health Services and Turuki Healthcare. TeleHealth and other virtual strategies play a major role in ProCare’s investment. Turuki Healthcare had a major role in the covid era policies, as contractor to the quarantine concentration camp facilities and ‘pop-up’ mobile jab centres:
Watch Turuki Healthcare DEI-friendly ‘Top 100 Maori Leader’ Dr Lily Fraser promoting the jabs (she even admits the ‘possibility of a rare adverse event’) [3m 40s]:
Turuki Healthcare are still promoting the covid era policies here. And linking back my article last week about continuing jab mandates, there’s no surprises that vacancies in the ProCare Group still insist on applicants having had doses of the experimental mRNA injectable. Poor Dr Fraser got covid anyway.
Congratulations went to Dr Fraser when she received this special award from the RNZCGP in July 2023 for her ‘hard work’ during covid. I’m sure the connections between the Network Turuki Healthcare belongs to and Dr Cole’s appointments had no influence on this award (!) (BTW Looks like Dr Fraser has since moved on to a different but similar commercial healthcare operation.)
Incidentally, ProCare Group’s lawyers are Buddle Findlay, which this year appointed Helen Pryde previously of Worksafe NZ. Buddle Findlay represent many of the NZ Government Depts in Employment Law disputes, including Health New Zealand. But more on that another day.
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No-one will be surprised to see that Dr Cole's GP clinic managed to reach 17,160 doses of the jab, profiting a total of $618,618 from the Gov incentive scheme. Receipt and Dispatch Data,
OIA CRM0401037 July 2023...
Thank you for your work in connecting the dots between the doctors and the money trail in NZ.