Christchurch radiologist Ian Cowan’s novel takes us back to the health reforms of the early 1990s. New
Zealand’s public healthcare system was falling into turmoil as the government
tried to convert public hospitals into competing independent businesses,
dedicated to operating at a profit.
‘Not Our Problem’ tells the story of
surgical trainee Stephen Cassidy. He is working long hours at a New Zealand
hospital and suffering from burn out, exams are looming and he has become so
difficult to live with that his girlfriend Zoe has left him.
Cassidy decides to take a year off to regain
his sanity and try to win Zoe back. He gets a job in hospital management,
expecting to help the organisation run better and leave work at 5.00pm every
evening.
But it’s 1992 and the
health reforms are in full swing. Cassidy battles with the managers as he sees
relentless funding cuts affecting staff and patients. His expert advice is
consistently rejected and Zoe leaves, perhaps forever. It’s time for Cassidy to
take matters into his own hands.
The characters in ‘Not Our Problem’
are fictional but almost all the events are real, with sources documented at
the end of the book.
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