Fears Of Closing Of Akaroa Hospital

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31802, 5 October 1968, Page 14

Fears Of Closing Of Akaroa Hospital

Any move by the North Canterbury Hospital Board to close the Akaroa Hospital will be sternly resisted by the Akaroa County Council.

The council yesterday decided to write to the hospital board member for the district, Mr J. B. Hay, and the chairman of the board (Dr L. C. L. Averill) requesting that the council be kept fully informed of any moves involving country hospitals. “I have got a nasty feeling that we will wake up one morning and read in The Press’ that our hospital has been closed,” the council chairman (Mr G. P. A. de Latour) said. He had read of the settingup of committees to investigate country, or cottage hospitals, and a great many country hospitals had been closed, Mr de Latour said. ‘There is no doubt whatever that our hospital adds to the attractiveness of being medical practitioner in the district We take the hospi-

tai for granted. Can you imagine our district without medical services, and the hospital. “It is not only the hospital itself, it is the key part it plays in the medical services for this isolated distriv 1 , and I move that the council ask the hospital board to keep us fully Informed of the progress and results of any investigations,” Mr de Latour said. Mr V. F. Armstrong said there was a growing trend towards making it more difficult to live in isolated districts. Children had to go to the cities to secondary school. Persons who became ill had to go to the city. Mr de Latour: Can you think what it would be like in this district without a doctor? Cr F. G. Harris: Without a doctor, a person with a broken arm, anyone hurt at work or on the road would have to be taken to Christchurch. Mr de Latour said it was admitted that the hospital board had problems in staffing cottage hospitals, but closing the hospitals did not necessarily effect economies, and if it brought about an end to medical services in a district was not in the long term interest of the board or the people it served.