Prof strongly protests axing of learning centre
As a previous director of the medical teaching support unit at the Dunedin School of Medicine, I register a strong protest at the axing of the Interdisciplinary Learning Centre from the plans for the new Dunedin hospital.
Adverse consequences are inevitable. The potential for cross disciplinary learning, vital for the effective practice of modern medicine, will be reduced. The Dunedin School of Medicine will lose its competitive global edge in attracting international staff and students. Introduction of innovative new technologies will be impaired.
The status of Dunedin as the city with a famous medical school would diminish.
Good health and education services are a vital part of a developed society. Underfunding has dogged the ability to provide adequately resourced services in the past. Current shortages are a consequence.
Our choice is to continue the frustrating cycles of the past, or to invest in a future which will benefit everyone in our community.
Gil Barbezat
Emeritus Professor of Medicine
Come together
The new hospital budget is short on funding and is reducing the scope of the build. Just 3km away our university has an abundance of new buildings but a shortage of students to fill them. Can the two centres of higher learning do themselves a favour, and do the obvious. Compromising on location and fit-out might be just what the doctor ordered if the end result is an operational learning centre.
Peter Grant
Oamaru
Shambolic summation
I heartily endorse Harry Love’s (ODT 21.6.23) assessment of the opinion piece (ODT 16.6.23) on the University of Otago shambles. The whole disaster was summed up in a nutshell. All that seems to be happening at senior management level is a) attempts to shift blame for the financial mess and b) a constant series of gaffes that predict the university will go down the proverbial gurgler. Hardly stirring reasons for anyone to want to come here any more, staff or students.
Ironically, the university’s excessive building splurge, an own goal in a highly volatile environment, has resulted in a burgeoning of academic buildings that will now house a paucity of academic staff or may need to be sold off.
Pat Duffy
Opoho
Enemies of our country
Last Saturday, I happened to drive past the scout hall in Victoria Rd. There was a crowd of unkempt people outside on the footpath, watching and gesturing at a file of well-dressed and obviously normal people leaving the building.
I have since found out that the people outside were a ‘‘rent a crowd’’ of agitators trying to put a stop to a legal and peaceful meeting convened to discuss the issue of co-governance.
To any person who believes in real democracy this is a situation that needs to be rationally discussed.
As so often nowadays, a small group of agitators can hold the majority to ransom.
These agitators are the enemy of our country and are pushing their agenda at the expense of the greater majority of our citizens.
They are also able to bring to bear influence on people who are too scared to go against the left-wing narrative and accede to their bullying demands, which often means cancellation of perfectly valid agreements to hire venues.
Is this what our country has come to? Little wonder people are leaving this country in droves.
Dave Tackney
Fairfield
Plight of West Papuans should be remembered
Damien Kingsbury's article on West Papua and hostage Philip Merhtens (ODT 21.6.23) explains the situation well. The Indonesian colonisation of West Papua began from the day it took over administration of the country on April 1 1963. The day before, along with other foreigners, I was required to leave West Papua so there would be no outside witnesses to the activities of Indonesian military and police.
My one encounter with the former left me in no doubt about the authoritarian rule that West Papuans would face as strangers in their own land and viewed as inferior natives to the waves of incoming Javanese settlers. Symbolically, however, I was proud that a year earlier we had taken the West Papuan Morning Star flag to the summit of the highest mountain on the island - the Carstensz Pyramid - on making the first ascent.
It is unconscionable that our government says and does nothing about this ongoing coercive colonisation of indigenous people in our wider neighbourhood, especially when New Zealand supports indigenous rights elsewhere in the Pacific region. Those who call for ‘‘decolonisation’’ here need to demonstrate their commitment to a cause where it really matters.
Philip Temple
Dunedin
Ngata lift-out praised, and questioned
A gracious editorial on ODT content-supplier RNZ’s failure to spot propaganda in its web articles (16.6.23), but the ODT is now actively publishing propaganda by the New Zealand Centre for Political Research (NZCPR), disseminating (as a paid advertisement) Sir Apirana Ngata’s The Treaty of Waitangi: An Explanation (ODT 20.6.23), a century-old piece of our colonial puzzle deliberately isolated from history’s full picture here for a misleading rhetorical effect.
Treaty controversies aside, NZCPR has also encouraged anti-vaxers and the idea Ardern was a totalitarian. Will the ODT allow vaccine hesitant groups to publish century-old medical articles as paid advertisements for “the benefit of the public’s education” too? If you really want to maintain public trust in the fourth estate, maybe it’s time to rethink your advertorial policy.
Hayden Williams
Opoho
Why is one of your letter writers so concerned about the source behind the reprinting of Sir Apirana Ngata’s article from 1922? It’s a reprint, there was no input from the NZCPR. Perhaps all it did was present truth?
Annette Wale
Wanaka
The insert sponsored by the NZCPR is the work of Sir Apirana Ngata, a lawyer and statesman revered for his deep knowledge of Te Ao Maori. He was writing to his people a century ago, and his interpretation of Te Tiriti is as relevant as ever today. I wonder what he would make of Sue Walthert's (Letters 22.6.23) effort to damn his words as ‘‘right wing’’? What a lazy cliche that has become, devoid of meaning through its overuse by closed-minded people trying to shut down debates they could otherwise lose. God forbid that the ODT's readership might encounter some balance to the political commentary.
Paul Sabonadiere
Dunedin
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