A vaccine PR test
Here’s a simple PR test. Imagine you are a DHB Board member. Read the following background and answer one question.
1) Hundreds of staff at Stanford Medicine mount a physical protest when Board members and the executive took Covid vaccines ahead of frontline doctors and nurses. Similar protests emerge at hospitals and medical centres throughout America.
2) Canadian frontline medical staff demand prioritisation because administration staff, including a PR executive, get vaccinated ahead of frontline staff.
Now, the question before your Board is: The DHB is about to vaccinate all front-line staff – should Board members get vaccinated immediately before them.
If the answer is yes, then you’ve just earned yourself opprobrium and notoriety like that experienced by the Counties Manukau DHB when Board members were vaccinated ahead of the offer to frontline staff in April.
If the answer is no, then you’ve attracted no attention at all. Well done. And note that even talking about your selfless decision would have been poorly received.
The correct answer was intuitive, but it should have been made obvious by what had just happened around the world to other health administrators. This is why PR people stay abreast of current affairs and things going on in the industries they serve.