Motorists reckless but cyclists not blameless
Helen Jamieson’s letter "Cycle safety" (Letters 4.5.23), expresses frustration with motorists, with good cause, considering the recent spate of accidents.
Increasingly, road users seem less proficient; others act visibly more selfish, ignoring the road code, when it’s in their interest to do so, and use phones blatantly.
Sadly, many cyclists appear similarly incompetent or thoughtless, constantly endangering themselves, pedestrians and motorists.
Riders often treat red lights as give ways, use pedestrian crossings through intersections, ignore restricted zones and reverse travel one-way streets, with reckless abandon.
The horn rebutted with a blank stare or, occasionally, the unwashed’s sign language.
There is little excuse for the current behaviour, from either faction.
Regardless of culpability, when trajectories converge, typically the cyclist’s resultant injuries are vastly more dire.
Scanner row simmers
I am concerned that Pete Hodgson seems willing to continue the white-anting process at the new hospital, and to contract PET scanning out to the private sector (ODT 4.5.23), leaving only an empty space in the new hospital.
I need to bring to his attention a newish word: "theranostics", a portmanteau from the 1990s made up of therapy and diagnostics, and which has a particular application to cancer.
This involves PET scanning, which can show exactly where tumours are (diagnosis), and followed by very precisely targeted chemicals to destroy those tumours (therapy). It’s been called "precision oncology", and is revolutionising cancer treatment.
At the moment, as I understand, it’s only available in private, at Auckland.
An illustrious Otago graduate, Dr Graeme Bydder, who himself had a role in the early developments of CT and MRI scanning, and is now an emeritus professor of radiology at the University of San Diego, has written to me about PET scanning as follows: "[Dunedin] should have had one at least 10 years ago. In fact PET has now moved on to a really exciting new area of theranostics ... for targeted treatment of cancers. Departments around the world are gearing up to expand their PET facilities to meet an expanding demand for this in prostate and many other tumours.
"This surely has to be part of future planning in Dunedin."
If we are to have a "state-of-the-art" hospital –that is what we were promised — then a PET scanner dedicated to modern cancer treatment, fully staffed, within the setting of the new hospital, and if we could offer a national public service for particular cancers, well then, that could operate alongside the private machine providing other applications.
With that ambition for our new hospital, oncology doctors would find Dunedin a more attractive place at which to seek employment, and I do need to remind Mr Hodgson of a particular current difficulty in cancer management in Dunedin, with respect to staffing.
A new hospital with no PET scanner is more like a state-of-the-least-we-can-get-away-with.
Size matters
Let's not fight to have the original hospital with its original size. We are going to need a bigger hospital.
With the serious weather events occurring regularly in Auckland and its environment, northerners are going to be moving south.
In fact, and I have it on good authority, the migration has already begun.
Hall meanderings frustrate Cromwell residents
Local residents in Cromwell view with growing alarm the cost escalations on the rebuild of the Cromwell Hall.
News out from the community board meeting (8.5.23). Now well over $42 million. The War Memorial grounds were re-established near the hall when the old ones were flooded. They are on a prime site.
But the plan is to build a new museum there, and shift the war memorial to the other side of the hall where the car parking now is.
It would save a lot of money to actually find a different and better site for the museum.
More and more precious time is being wasted, along with the dollars.
It is time to get on with it and try to get this project together.
King Dick who?
With a myriad of issues in our education system it is easy to criticise our hamstrung teachers and demand that students learn from a particular curriculum. No doubt Mr. Walton (Letters, 5.5.23) and others would like to see the gory specifics of early Māori history taught despite being inappropriate for a primary school classroom. The history of Otago’s Chinese settlers is far more meaningful. It teaches students to learn how the early settlement of Aotearoa contributed to its diverse population. Is that historical revisionism according to Mr Smith (Letters, 1.5.2023)?
On a recent lunch break outside Parliament, a group of high school students asked this former Dunedinite who the statue of Richard Seddon was. We have far to go.
University needs to get back to basics
I am an Otago graduate from the mid-1960s and have been an enthusiastic supporter and donor to my beloved university for several decades, but no more.
The university seems to be losing its way by its demonstrated financial incompetence, throwing out much of its tradition and distinguished past, and de-emphasising the reason for its existence that is the first-class education and development of all.
The university’s recently released "final draft" Vision-2040 is 11 laborious pages of sociology and politics rather than a short and succinct goal for what it is meant to be doing advancing and improving higher education and research, promoting free speech and ensuring equality of opportunity for all. And the close to $1 million spent so far on consultants for changing the university’s coat of arms, logo and name is a complete waste of money. Even more so in the light of the recently announced $60 million budget blowout.
I have been officially informed by the university that the prime reason for changing its name is that "Otago" is a non-Maori word and that it also is meaningless. Yet there are scholarly research articles available that state the opposite.
Otago’s world renowned reputation for educational excellence and research and its universal name recognition are in danger of being squandered. I hope the university’s hierarchy will think again, scrap its ponderous Vision-2040, keep its history intact and get back to basics.
Sanctimony
Am I being sanctimonious when I think Gerrard Eckhoff (Letters, 3.5.23) is being sanctimonious when he criticises someone for objecting to ribald "humour" made at the expense of women? The sooner such "humour" is a thing of the past the better
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
