Parking space essential for the new hospital
Please planners, include a dedicated car park for the proposed new hospital.
You wouldn't get planning permission for a mall or supermarket these days without one, and the need for one at the hospital is self-evident.
By definition, people needing to access it have health problems, or are delivering somebody who does, or are working there. Even those taking people are often elderly or infirm.
I recently had an appointment for a bone scan at Nuclear Medicine — the staff there were brilliant. I came early hoping to get a park on Frederick St, which I eventually managed. I could only park for four hours, and the bone scan involves two appointments with a gap of two hours in between, so I had to move the car again.
I’m heading for 80, with osteoarthritis, so doing all this is not as easy as it once was.
Disability parks are needed, and more of them than at the current hospital. I had to take my late wife to appointments there.
She had MS and was in a wheelchair. The half dozen or so disability parks were always full, which meant I had to drop her off at the foyer near the ambulance bay, and abandon her whilst I went off to find a multi-storey park.
Nurses and other staff, especially women, finishing shifts at night should not have to run the gauntlet of Dunedin's streets alone to get to the safety of their cars. Would the planners be happy for their wives or daughters to have to do this? They deserve a safe place to park.
This building will be the most important build in the city for decades to come.
A builder friend has an adage: "Do it once, do it right." Very apposite for the new hospital.
Get with the times
Heather MacLeod thinks giving Māori names for our universities, government departments, and road signage is going too far (Letters, 5.6.23).
I would like to offer an opinion from the growing number of New Zealanders learning our indigenous language. We are on track to have one million speakers of basic te reo Māori by 2040. Schoolchildren are becoming proficient in it. One of the most popular papers at the University of Otago is "Introduction to Conversational Māori."
Te reo Māori has been an official language for nearly 40 years. Its use is only going to increase within the next few decades. It is time to get with the times or get left behind.
Heated pool
Good to see that the new Mosgiel Pool is to be heated by chip-fired burners.
I hope that the Dunedin City Council can use the slash from their forestry operations for the chips and that the new hospital will use the same source. If we have a weather event like the ones the North Island has had, a lot of slash is going to end up in the Silverstream, causing dams to form at bridges and serious flooding.
We have seen this previously at the ford on Gladfield Rd and it took years for this to be repaired.
What would Dr Hislop make of all the drama?
The University of Otago has always taken pride in its status as New Zealand’s first university. My great great grandfather Dr John Hislop was first secretary and registrar of Otago University when it was established in 1869. I do not think he would be very impressed with its current dramas.
In 1855 when the Otago Provincial Government sought the services of experienced teachers for its public schools, Dr Hislop of Edinburgh was one of those engaged and in October 1856 he arrived at Port Chalmers on the Strathmore. He was appointed to the newly-opened school at East Taieri where he taught for 4-1/2 years. In 1861 Dr Hislop was appointed Secretary of Education and Inspector of Schools for the province and, after these positions were separated, retained the secretary position until 1878.
When the provinces were abolished in 1876, Hislop drafted the temporary Act which served until the Education Act of 1877 — jointly drafted by C. C. Bowen and himself could be passed. In January 1878 when the Act of 1877 came into force, Dr Hislop was appointed Secretary of the new Education Department in Wellington, a post he held for eight years until his retirement in March 1886.
When he retired they returned to Dunedin. The Act governed the New Zealand education system for many years and was still in force at the time of Dr Hislop’s death in 1904.
He played a large role in the establishment of the Otago Boys’ and Girls’ High Schools, Teachers’ Training School, School of Art, and the district high school.
Dr Hislop undertook a variety of public roles, even after his retirement, and in honour of his contribution to education he was awarded a LL.D by Edinburgh University when he visited Scotland in 1882, "For his well known services in the cause of education."
Mudslinging season here, worse luck
New Zealand’s political party mudslinging is at an all-time high.
I don’t mind the odd bit of debate and rebuttal amongst the parties during election season but this year it must be different.
This year is when we start to feel our own version of long Covid, at the petrol pumps, supermarkets and, well, everywhere.
Inflation is too high, income is too low and political parties are still sticking with the tradition of insulting one another, without producing real solutions.
National wants to reinstate prescription charges for contraception.
That seems odd but not particularly surprising that they’ve chosen a specifically female medication to stand on their soapbox with.
Megan Woods (Labour) fired back with a Handmaid’s Tale taunt at National, and then Nicola Willis got on her soapbox and spoke up against the insult, instead of actually picking up on the obvious opportunity.
Reinstate all prescription charges for those incomes in excess of the living wage only, and how about doing something for your female counterparts in this country and make all sanitary products — products women can not live without because of a biological response — free.
Scotland has done it, so should we.
Labour made them free for girls in school.
How about National step this up instead of throwing mud at Labour? Mud is just mud.
ORC rate rises
With inflation running at 5.5 % how does ORC get away with 18% rate rises, last year and this year?
Is there no control over such skyrocketing increases?
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
