Bloomfield

Health workers are thanking Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield for his work stopping the ailing health system from collapsing in the pandemic - and ...

Ashley Bloomfield may be our first and last celebrity public servant – and his tenure may serve as a cautionary tale to others.

His tenure must come as close to a tour of duty as work in the public service ever could. It also made the work of those whose job it is to hold the public sector to account more difficult, and that is my second regret. In my column in 2020, I said I’d spontaneously combust if I ever met Ashley Bloomfield. I think now, I’d simply shake his hand and say thank you like a normal person who has, as he has, lived through an extraordinary two years where we have all changed, made enormous sacrifices and felt immense pressure. I remain forever grateful to Mediawatch’s Hayden Donnell who granted me further dignity by putting “self-aware” in brackets when describing my paean to Ashley Bloomfield in a piece that began to chart the backlash against Ashley Bloomfield’s popularity. She granted me the dignity of reporting that I had “jokingly” changed my handle, but I am still named in the piece as the unofficial leader of the nation’s Bloomfield devotees. If he ever had knowledge of the erotic fan fiction that developed with him in a starring role, he never let on. He probably expected that scrutiny, and in his responses to criticism you see a man doing his job. Columnists seldom get the chance to apply a retrospective eye to things they’ve written because they are so “of the zeitgeist”, but we do impact cumulative effect. My first mention as a writer in the Guardian and I am quoted as saying that Ashley Bloomfield “has nice hair”. A true career highlight. The 2020 piece was the writing of someone with a deadline who was losing her mind. The beginning of anarchy, and the descent into eating our pets, is always visualised as dead air on the telly in the movies. I referred to Ashley Bloomfield by his full name throughout and it became a thing people referenced online.

Pandemic folk hero has revealed he'll hang up his health-boss boots in July.

If he's into it (and who are we to judge) there is a rich and long second career for him posing for admiring artists. In July 2020, Dr Bloomfield was the star of the annual Centurions vs Parliamentary XV clash. If he so wishes, the good doctor could spend the rest of his days starring in the very best of New Zealand's reality formats. Tempting though it is to berate him for abandoning New Zealanders across the motu, let's instead say thanks, doc, and collect together some extremely useful suggestions for his next career adventure. What we can say is that he's put in a big shift and done a mostly splendid job dealing with a nasty bastard of a pandemic. He could sing masked, he could twerk more assiduously than anyone has twerked before on Dancing with the Stars; just imagine what kind of virus-seeping Frankenstein sponge he might create on the Great Kiwi Bake Off. If they brought back the Krypton Factor he'd win that.

Health workers are describing the departing Director-General of Health as having been vital in getting the country through the pandemic.

All three were there at the most important stage but it was "a bit worrying" they were leaving. "The work that they did over the past couple of years, it's just relentless." "As Ashley said to me in the weekend, he is just exhausted." "I'm amazed that they lasted so long." "I take my hat off to him. But not everything was perfect under his tenure.

Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes revealed Dr Bloomfield's decision in a statement this morning. Bloomfield had signalled to the commissioner late last ...

Give the man a beer, he's truly earned it!" So kia ora from across the Motu, Dr Bloomfield. We thank you." I know many New Zealanders will also be thankful for the job he has done."

According to a statement from the Public Service Commission, Dr Bloomfield signalled late last year that he intended to step down before his term was scheduled ...

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, posting on Instagram, said she hadn't gotten to know many public servants as well as Bloomfield. "Through his tireless dedication ...

"Equally importantly, I'm still in the job for the next four months. The wider public service has done an outstanding job in helping lead the country through the Covid-19 pandemic and it's been a pleasure working with other public service leaders to help deliver the response." "I've done everything I set out to do when I came into the role. "I've committed myself wholeheartedly to the role for nearly four years. I know many New Zealanders will also be thankful for the job he has done. Give the man a beer, he's truly earned it!"

Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield is being lauded as a true public servant who worked tirelessly during the Covid-19 pandemic after an announc.

"Equally importantly, I'm still in the job for the next four months. "I've done everything I set out to do when I came into the role. The wider public service has done an outstanding job in helping lead the country through the Covid-19 pandemic and it's been a pleasure working with other public service leaders to help deliver the response." "I've committed myself wholeheartedly to the role for nearly four years. I know many New Zealanders will also be thankful for the job he has done. He said with the changing nature of the pandemic, as well as the changes to the health sector with fewer DHBs, "it's a good time for me to step back and allow a new director-general to shape and lead the organisation in future".

Softly-spoken public servant who became a household name says the role had been challenging and complex.

Asked by reporters about his tenure and the way New Zealanders had responded to him, he said, “throughout the last two years I’ve heard from New Zealanders all across the country, a huge number of messages of gratitude and support - not for me for me and my role but for the work that our team has done… “I know many New Zealanders will also be thankful for the job he has done.” “I’ve been thinking for a while about what’s the right time for me to step down. “There’s not many public servants I have got to know as well as Dr Ashley Bloomfield,” prime minister Jacinda Ardern said in a tribute to the director-general’s tenure. According to local media outlet Stuff, Bloomfield “worked 12-hour days, up to seven days a week, through much of the pandemic”. His fame grew as his public health announcements were set to dubstep at a music festival, informal fanclubs appeared online, and he became inspiration for some ill-advised fanfiction, including a romance novella.

Chris Hipkins joked it was time for the Director-General of Health to "go outside and spread your wings", referencing his "spread your legs" gaffe.

"He has been central to our Covid success as a nation, and he's done it with humour and grace. Bloomfield came to public prominence in early 2020 at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. "My family will certainly be pleased to have more of my time, I just felt it was the right time. "It’s been an incredible couple of years. I’ve been thinking for a while about when might be the best time for me to step down. "His workload has been enormous and it hasn’t just been to Covid-19, and in fact his entire life has been dedicated to the health and well-being of New Zealanders," Hipkins said.

It's been hours since the director-general of health said he was resigning, and he's already got job offers.

I'm also confident that the system is in good hands with the changes that are afoot. “It seems we're at a good point in terms of the pandemic, the response is shifting. It’s very intense.” “A pandemic is something you carry with you 24/7, even when you're on holiday, so that's the first thing. I’m putting some thought into what I do next. But it’s unlikely many could afford him.

Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes announced the news in a media release on Tuesday morning. "At this stage in the Government's Covid-19 response, ...

Bloomfield came to public prominence in early 2020 at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. So kia ora from across the Motu, Dr Bloomfield. We thank you," she wrote. I know many New Zealanders will also be thankful for the job he has done.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who at times privately had a fractious relationship with the Covid-19 custodian, laid it on with a trowel, saying she had come to ...

He'd even lose control of the Covid calamity which gave him a profile that few other public servants have managed to achieve. For Bloomfield, there was no point sticking around. Bloomfield was being done out of a job. - Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield resigns: ... - Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield resigns ... If he had stuck around, he would have ended this year as a diminished general with few to direct - the guts of his job was disappearing with the Beehive doing away with the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) and replacing them with the new Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority.

The good doctor - Dr Ashley Bloomfield - has signed off. The man who led New Zealand through the COVID-19 pandemic announced on Wednesday he'd be resigning ...

Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes announced the news in a media release on Tuesday morning. "At this stage in the Government's Covid-19 response, ...

Bloomfield came to public prominence in early 2020 at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. So kia ora from across the Motu, Dr Bloomfield. We thank you," she wrote. I know many New Zealanders will also be thankful for the job he has done.

Covid-19 Response Minister says resigning Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield has saved thousands of lives. The Ministry of Health will soon be without ...

“It seems we're at a good point in terms of the pandemic. “In the last two years, I don’t think it could have been more complex and challenging.” By June he would have been in the job for four years. The response is shifting. “His workload has been enormous, but it hasn’t just been related to Covid-19. And, in fact, his entire life has been dedicated to the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders.” Bloomfield had advised the Government at every step of the public health response to Covid, and that advice had been the basis for the Government’s decision-making, Hipkins said.

In a way, you can't blame Ashley Bloomfield, and yet you can. He's quit. Why wouldn't he? What a thankless task. But why do you quit when the job isn't ov.

He only lost his cool once with me and I am a pain in the arse at times. He rarely said sorry despite the myriad of cock ups. What I do know is we made him a bigger deal than he should have been. Or just a great job with the limitations we had? I'm not sure how much of what he did was him versus what the government made him do. How much of a puppet was he for an inexperienced government that clung to the public service for dear life because they couldn't make a decision for themselves?

Health workers are thanking Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield for his work stopping the ailing health system from collapsing in the pandemic ...

All three were there at the most important stage but it was "a bit worrying" they were leaving. "The work that they did over the past couple of years, it's just relentless." "As Ashley said to me in the weekend, he is just exhausted." "I'm amazed that they lasted so long." "I take my hat off to him. But not everything was perfect under his tenure.

ANALYSIS: It is hard to say when we will see another public servant like him - but the director-general of health was also an adroit political operator.

In the end New Zealand’s Covid-19 response revolved around two main pillars: closed borders and lockdowns, with enough contact tracing and testing capacity to try to stomp out any Covid incursions at the border. And it was noted around the traps. The fact was that the Government most often took his advice – he, along with many other public health specialists, was professionally invested in the approach. In an interview he speculated about how a return to level 1 freedoms would not be possible. There were significant grumblings about the fact that it was often Bloomfield – not ministers – explaining and justifying policy. It wasn't really Bloomfield's fault, but it was the position he had been put in.