It's kind of worrying to read about your experiences. I think it's about time the organisation refreshed itself a bit. In the meantime I've done a bit more research and found out that Plunket has a Corporate Sponsorship programme. Star sponsors include ANZ, Huggies, Wattie's and Foodtown/Woolworths. Accepting Huggies and Wattie's as Star Sponsors seems particularly challenging given their vested interest in baby products. Plunket doesn't list any other brand of either nappies or baby food as sponsors. So I don't see how they can provide impartial advice (which is what I think they should be doing). Talk about a conflict of interest.

-Stef

Plunket No Help
New Safety Product to Market

I too have found Plunket unhelpful with a product that I have invented and wanted someone in the field to check it out for me regarding safety issues etc before going to the market. No one in Plunket would help! Not even the safety lady herself or marketing or anyone. Yes I too see endorsements from Plunket everywhere. I even offered to donate money for them to check the safety of my product and still no one would help me. Shame really as they are always asking for money.

I am a working Mum, and my Husband has been a stay at home father for the last 5 years caring for our two young sons.
I am not surprised by Plunket's response as we have found our dealing's with this organisation, on the whole, generally hopeless!
I am flabbergasted at their attitude toward Dad's being at home, especially in this day and age.
They offered my husband no support in the early days with our firstborn even though we were strugggling with a 'difficult' babe and no family support close by.
To this day whenever we are contacted by them they still ask to speak to me yet I have never been the children's carer!
I can only hope and presume that they are not like this all the time and we are an isolated case....

Unbelievable ... well not really.

Why in the hell is Plunket "endorsing" anything? Shouldn't they be more impartial than that? For example, as a parent that uses cloth nappies, I resent that Plunket endorses disposable nappies at all. Of course, others will have different opinions on this topic, which is quite all right. But why is Plunket taking sides on this issue? I thought they were a support organization, not a political one.

Actually, not being a native New Zealander, I was pretty paranoid about Plunket. I imagined government spies coming into my home and telling me how to do it and reporting me to the jack-booted thugs if I didn't do it their way. After meeting our Plunket nurse, my opinion softened. Still, I haven't completely made up my mind about Plunket, and your blog entry is enlightening. Thank goodness Plunket is "optional," at least for now.

Good comment, on the face of the discussion, this is a real issue for Plunket to address. To me Plunket staff are all individually excellent professional and empathetic individuals - as a father of 1.6 children and the son of a career Plunket Nurse I was very interested to read your blog. It is the "governance" or leadership of Plunket that in my view needs an overhaul - to address overworked and under appreciated workforce, apparently multi layers of bureaucracy and the attraction of funding. Good work and keep them honest.