Pain relief in labour
Geoffrey Frost made this Official Information request to Ministry of Health
The request was partially successful.
From: Geoffrey Frost
Dear Ministry of Health,
Your website contains the following page:
https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/p...
You state that pain relief includes homeopathy, acupressure and acupuncture.
Please provide all the evidence that the Ministry has relied on in making the statement that these treatments are effective.
Yours faithfully,
Geoffrey Frost
Ministry of Health
Kia ora
Thank you for your email dated 13 July 2019 requesting the following
information under the Official Information Act 1982:
"Your website contains the following page:
[1]https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/p...
You state that pain relief includes homeopathy, acupressure and
acupuncture.
Please provide all the evidence that the Ministry has relied on in making
the statement that these treatments are effective. "
The Ministry's reference number for your request is: H201906501.
As required under the Act we will endeavour to respond to your request no
later than 9 August 2019, being 20 working days after the day your request
was received.
If we are unable to respond to your request within this time frame, we
will notify you of an extension of that time frame.
If you have any queries related to this request, please do not hesitate to
get in touch.
Nga mihi
OIA Services
Government Services
Office of the Director-General
Ministry of Health
E: [email address]
[2]http://www.health.govt.nz
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References
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1. https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/p...
2. http://www.health.govt.nz/
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Ministry of Health
Kia ora Geoffrey
Please find attached a letter regarding your request for official
information.
Nga mihi
OIA Services
Government Services
Office of the Director-General
Ministry of Health
E: [email address]
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If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments.
If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message.
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Mark Hanna left an annotation ()
What a ridiculous response. If the advice is supported by "quantitative and qualitative studies" then clearly to answer your request that they "Please provide all the evidence" they should at least provide a list of these studies. I hope you will lay a complaint with the Ombudsman regarding this clearly insufficient response.
If the Ministry of Health has a reason for not releasing the information that you have requested, the OIA obliges them to tell you what that reason is. I would not be surprised, for example, to find that they do not know what evidence their statement is based on and would therefore refuse your request under section 18(e) of the Official Information Act:
"that the document alleged to contain the information requested does not exist or, despite reasonable efforts to locate it, cannot be found"
The inclusion of the term "allopathic", which in my experience is typically only used by supporters of homeopathy (the term "allopathy" was invented as a counterpoint to "homeopathy") as a denigratory term applied to science-based medicine, is also potentially quite concerning.
Link to this