Health centre shop front

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 591, 20 June 1995, Page 4

Health centre shop front

• And just when you'd got the sand off the rug and everything upright, the biggest, dirtiest old seagull in the Southern Hemisphere comes and poops on your head. Poops is the perfect word. We all know what it means. That old seagull, Good Health Wanganui prefers words like 'workout', 'flexible', 'innovative' and 'exit'. As far as I am concerned 'exit' is a neon movie sign designed to assist those of us with failing sight to stagger out of the pictures. Good Health's plans for health services in the Waimarino have characteristics of a bad Lotto draw. When his holiness the King Seagull talked at us on 22 July 1993, he outlined the 'huge cost of upgrading the old building to meet safety and fire standards ... to meet the very tight guidelines required to get a hospital licence'. Their plans look like the thin edge of the wedge and if all they intend is a bit of a welcoming shopfront with dogeared pamphlets on venereal disease, one would wonder whether any of those requirements indeed need to be met? The Central Regional Health Authority say community consultation is paramount. In preparing their Purchase Plans 1994-1997, the overriding concern in the 200-plus submissions, including that from the Waimarino Community Health Group, pointed to local access to services in

rural communities. People strongly supported their local services and wanted them retained. No one is in the dark over this. Good Health Wanganui in its commercially-driven mode could now become truly innovative. They could chop the new unit in half, shift it over to Ohakune and open the front up as Dr Ropati's Bar and Grill or Shortland Street Unisex Hairstylists — "we'll cut your hair while they cut you up". Improved transport is not the answer. It can become invisible quite easily and 60-plus kilometres to Taihape doesn' t compare to 60-plus kilometres in a populated area. Horses for courses. Some of Auckland' s taxi drivers are probably some of this country's finest obstetricians. This doesn' t compare to trying to deliver on some winds wept stretch of road, competing for space in the back seat with the family dog. There is a hint of divide and rule here. One day Taihape services are to be expanded with gleeful jumping up and down; the next day the King Seagull tells them if they don't shape up they '11 ship their in-patient service out. Seagulls always follow boats. Are we "spoilt" with our services? We haven' t asked for an awful lot. I'm still prepared to do delicate neurosurgery in the privacy of my own home with a knife and fork and Aunt Millie's crochet hook. There is a possible answer to all this, as that big old seagull comes in low over Castlecliff for another go. He

doesn' t notice that one of those kids on the rug has a slingshot and pops that old bird out of the sky. If we have a less than satisfactory outcome for our concerns we can be like that kid and vote with our feet. Well, must away — got to boil up some water, the neighbour's having a baby.

Justine

Adams