ED doctor comments backed 100 percent
John Chambers’ comments (ODT 4.9.24) are accurate. Abandoning the Emergency Department short-stay beds, and reducing operating theatre capacity in the new Dunedin hospital would be short-sighted budgetary vandalism. Future needs must be considered in providing vital modern services to a growing region.
An ED facility permitting patient observation in short-stay beds is a basic requirement. It facilitates better and safer assessment of problematic patients, accelerates their triage process, offers better patient comfort and safety, and saves unnecessary costly admissions to inpatient wards.
As a Medical Registrar in a very busy overseas hospital in the 1960s, the introduction of such a facility made us appreciate its immense benefits, especially when there was pressure on inpatient beds. Staff, patients and hospital budgets benefited.
A hospital without such a facility drags practice standards back 60 years. It would result in greater patient morbidity and mortality, staff inconvenience, and increased expenditure.
It is a no-brainer.
Brown burbles
Wayne Brown’s unproved assertion about a new truck versus a new hospital (ODT 6.9.24) shows how unaware he is of anything south of the Bombay Hills, albeit a tongue-in-cheek comment.
If there isn't a new hospital people will be spending their KiwiSaver on private health insurance, if they could afford that, and would not thank you instead for a massive unnecessary fuel guzzler. Luxon and Willis need to place themselves in the shoes of a struggling family instead of sitting smugly on their well-upholstered backsides..
How dare Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown wade into Dunedin’s battle for a new fit-for-purpose hospital to serve the lower South Island, suggesting our people would rather have a Ford Ranger.
What does it have to do with him anyway, sitting on his northern perch in a city virtually built by Dunedin businesses last century as a result of the gold rushes?
Take care Mr Brown if you dare show your face in this neck of the woods. Keep your views to the city that elected you. We do not need them here.
I urgently beseech your readers not to bite on the quip by the Mayor of Auckland that we southerners would cheerfully accept an ageing hospital and a fossil-running utility rather than the "new" hospital we’ve been promised for decades.
The Mayor of Auckland is a clever bloke but clearly breathes in the lighter air up there when it comes to doing your homework before you open your mouth. For example, we quietly appreciate the superiority an Otago Medical School degree bestows.
But this trivialising dismissal of Dunedinites must be accorded the credit it deserves: north of the Waitaki, it’s commonly held that Dunedin is a cold, dark, gothic space bereft of anything worth coming for. Good. Let’s keep it like that, lest we attract the ilk of the Mayor of Auckland.
Do it yourself
Do some of the the residents of Heriot Row not have a shovel and bucket somewhere handy? Surely a little civic pride on someone's part and five minutes to spare could see the resident-generated rubbish picked up and re-binned after a wind; rather than whining to the council and ODT. Where has personal responsibility gone these days?
It is significant but it is not under stated
Your contributor Gerrard Eckhoff’s opinion piece (29.8.24), appears under the subtitle "Under Stated". This is ironic given the gross overstatement of the content.
For example, Significant Natural Areas. Under the Resource Management Act, this is a matter of national importance. Councils are charged with giving effect to district plans that meet this requirement. To achieve this aim often years of negotiations with all affected parties may or may not result in such vegetation getting a measure of protection that does not curtail existing farming. If it does the council or the Crown may negotiate to buy the land.
In like manner the protection of designated outstanding natural landscapes is another measure emanating from the RMA as a matter of national importance. Mr Eckhoff describes this as "taking" and the land becoming commercially worthless. What rubbish. The owner can carry on farming activities without restraint. If he or she wishes to develop a ski area or a resort for instance, they will have to obtain a resource consent.
The troublesome problems pressing on society are not the so-called misuse of power asserted by Mr Eckhoff. Rather it is the social integration the stuff that binds successful communities together is in serious decline. This is evident in declining school attendance and with it educational success; increasing serious crime and violence in the home: illicit drug supply and drug use: groups gathering for illegal endeavour: racial disenchantment: declining home ownership.
Mutual respect of person and space is the vital ingredient that characterises successful localities, regions, countries and beyond. This is the area that deserves our urgent attention.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
