Blending false narratives with scapegoating; think pots, kettles and black! (21 September 2024)

Summary

Ian Powell was Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the professional union representing senior doctors and dentists in New Zealand, for over 30 years, until December 2019. He is now a health systems, labour market, and political commentator living in the small river estuary community of Otaihanga (the place by the tide).

In this blog, Ian considers a negative role for the disingenuous in health systems to be scapegoating people or organisations for things that they have not done. Instead someone or something else has committed the wrong. When blended with a false narrative this scapegoating involves not only falsely blaming people for bad things; it can also mean alleging things that didn’t happen in the first place.