Please start saving lives, SDHB – not just money

I’m writing this because I too am concerned about the state of Frankton’s Lakes District Hospital.

Twenty years ago I was an apprentice carpenter helping build our hospital, which at the time I thought would be
a great asset to our community.

However, in the last 10 years all I’ve heard aboutLDH is complaints. But I didn’t take too much notice until not long ago when my daughter was injured on a Saturday afternoon and I took her to LDH at 5pm.

There was a doctor and X-ray staff there when we arrived and only two other patients yet we had to wait over five hours for an X-ray.

By this time, it was 10pm and we were told we’d have to wait another two hours to see a doctor because
a serious injury had come in.

We could accept this as this person’s life was on the line so we asked for our X-rays and went to the medical centre next day to get the injury looked at.

While I was at the hospital, a patient was taken to Southland Hospital in a taxi. How much did this cost?
And as I’ve been reading in Mountain Scene lately, poor pregnant mothers are being helicoptered to other hospitals to have their babies, some of which did not make it in time. I’m sure this must be very traumatic for them and their unborn babies and a huge cost to taxpayers.

Let’s sort this out by spending wasted money on more staff for LDH as it has everything else we need. Then these mothers and other patients can stay at the local hospital where they’re close to their support people and families.

Come on Southland District Health Board, get your act together and staff our hospital the way it should be staffed – this would not only save lives but also money.

I think saving money at LDH’s expense is the only thing SDHB is worried about – and not saving lives
in our community.

TREV MEIKLE
Lake Hayes Estate

Safety sells

New Zealand has missed the best opportunity ever to promote tourism as NZ has recently been rated the world’s safest country, just beating Finland.

My research when writing two books indicates many in the developed world believe, quite rightly, that effective terrorism has not even started as yet – so therefore safety on vacation is often people’s first priority.

NZ’s well-structured tourism industry is at this time under-utilised and a 20 per cent increase in visitor numbers would also improve our demise arising from the recession.

It’s the Government who should be implementing a massive promotion, maybe using a simple theme “NZ voted the safest”. Indeed, we would all be well-advised to quote NZ’s safety aspect to anyone we meet from overseas.

Our politicians have lately been spending a great deal of time justifying their now-exposed finances – but this is a distortion of priorities.

It’s not too late to begin this very widespread promotion. It may well be a never-to-be-seen-again opportunity to promote NZ tourism.

JOHN McIVOR
Kelvin Heights

No foreign foragers

So Jason Neal (MS July 30) wants low corporate taxes and “other fiscal incentives to attract foreign investment”. In other words, he wants New Zealand to be a tax haven where foreign owners can freeload, bludge and plunder at will.

Corporate welfare is clearly Neal’s wet dream and he and his speculating cronies – who got us into the financial mess we’re in globally – would get richer while the rest of us pay taxes and catch the crumbs off their table.

Let us raise corporate taxes to keep him and his dog-eat-dog world out of NZ.

PAUL ELWELL-SUTTON
Haast