“Putting work in its place” (February 17) makes interesting reading but doesn’t address issues of those professions requiring a 24/7 commitment of their staff, such as Fire and Emergency NZ or hospitals. The desire to improve work-life balance has compromised medical training and markedly increased staff costs. Medicine, particularly surgery, benefits from practitioners having been involved in a large number of procedures.
Would readers prefer to be operated on by a surgeon with wide experience, or one with little experience and a netball trophy? We risk being operated on by less-experienced surgeons or have our fires extinguished by firefighters who have rarely experienced a big blaze. While there may be a happy medium, there needs to be more critical analysis of the costs to organisations and the wider community in pursuing what some perceive as a more desirable work-life balance.
Geoffrey Horne (Wellington)
TE TIRITI
I doff my cap to Danyl McLauchlan for his excellent overview of the Treaty of Waitangi issues (“Entreaties of Waitangi”, February 10). Having ambiguous, liberal, conservative or radical principles and interpretations,
