Minister Asked To Provide Doctor

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32060, 7 August 1969, Page 24

Minister Asked To Provide Doctor

The people of Cheviot County want the Minister of Health (Mr McKay) to find a doctor to replace Dr Pauline Auld, who has given notice of her intention to leave Cheviot.

They sent a petition to him yesterday, signed by 765 residents of the county. The signatures are estimated to represent 95 per cent of the county’s adult population. In an accompanying letter the petitioners said they considered the Government and the Health Department had a moral duty to maintain medical services over the whole country, because it collected social security tax from all sections of the community for the purpose. Dr Auld served an area of 2000 persons, most of whom lived on farms, some as much as 45 minutes travelling from Cheviot. Their medical requirements could be gauged by the fact that the Cheviot chemist dispensed 9500 prescriptions a year; three schools attended by 450 children relied on the Cheviot doctor; children’s, sporting and other clubs depended on a doctor being available at a reasonable distance; the district had the usual proportion of asthmatics, chronically ill, maternity cases and aged persons requiring regular medical supervision; and the Cheviot Maternity Hospital had from 41 to 47 admissions a year up to 1967. The hospital was

closed for part of last year. “If there is no doctor resident in Cheviot, the nearest doctors will be in Waikari and Kaikoura (both one hour's travel from Cheviot) and as they are already fully occupied in their own large practices they will not be available easily for emergency work in the Cheviot area,” said the letter. The petitioners said they did not regard a medical centre at Waikari as a solution. New investment at Waikari seemed unnecessary when a hospital, doctor’s home and surgery were already established at Cheviot. The petitioners said they recognised that there was at present a shortage of doctors in New Zealand. “However,” they said, “we think this places an even greater obligation on the Government, and the Minister of Health in particular, to pursue policies that will ensure that the doctors available are equitably distributed throughout both rural and urban areas.” The petition was organised by Mrs M. L. Moyse, of the Cheviot branch of the Country Women’s Institute, and a committee of nine women representatives of other organisations in the county. ‘