New Diagnostic Station At Lincoln

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31362, 6 May 1967, Page 10

New Diagnostic Station At Lincoln

The Department of Agriculture’s new veterinary diagnostic station, now under construction at Lincoln, is expected to be completed by mid-August. Depending on staff and the installation of equipment, it is hoped that it will be operating about six weeks later.

The station, on an area of five acres on Ellesmere Junction road, will have a total floor space of about 2180 square feet It is close to the Crop Research Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Wool Research Organisation, and is an important addition to the group of buildings in the area working for the fanning industry.

The new station will supply a long-needed facility for farmers and veterinarians in the central and northern parts of the South Island,

and should serve Mid-Canter-bury and North Canterbury, the West Coast, and, perhaps, southern Marlborough. Nelson and northern Marlborough veterinarians may find it more convenient to send specimens to Wellington for diagnosis at the central diagnostic station at the Wallaceville Animal Research Centre. With this station and the other new one soon to be completed at Whangarei, in addition to the older-estab-lished stations at Ruakura, Wallaceville, and Taieri, the

diagnostic facilities of the department’s research division will cover the country much more efficiently. The station initially will be staffed by a superintendent and a diagnostic officer (both qualified veterinarians), a parasitologist, a microbiology technician, a technical assistant, an assistant laboratory attendant-driver, and a typist-clerk. Some of the staff

have already been appointed and are working at Wallaceville until the new station is ready. There will be no particular emphasis in the work of the new Lincoln station. These stations are designed primarily to answer, if possible, any diagnostic problem submitted to them. Anything in the nature of research will be handled by the department’s research centres.