Medical centre for Lyttelton urged

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32965, 11 July 1972, Page 14

Medical centre for Lyttelton urged

The Lyttelton Borough Council last night supported in principle a proposal by two local doctors to establish a medical centre at the port.

In a letter to the council one of the proposers, Dr N. Chambers, said medical services in Lyttelton were far from adequate—a condition which had been gradually deteriorating for several years. He asked the council to consider “with urgency” the establishment of a medical clinic to provide a comprehensive centre for the coordination of medical services in the borough. Without a modem, efficient medical centre, said Dr Chambers, Lyttelton would soon be like many other places, without adequate or with no local medical service at all.

It was intended that such a centre, open during all working hours at the port, would include under its roof doctors, an industrial health nurse, district nurse, Plunket, and ambulance—all of which at present were scattered round the port.

Two of the port’s doctors have been ill, Dr Chambers himself being unable to resume his practice for at least two months. A third doctor has been attempting to carry on alone with no-one to help him.

To illustrate the doctor shortage, Dr Chambers said

there were at least seven designated rural areas within 50 miles of Christchurch with no doctors. Lyttelton had been declared a rural area under the Health Act two years ago, yet the marginal financial and other benefits of this had not attracted another doctor to the area.

The council was informed that an application had been made by the medical practitioners for a Hospital Board Health Centre to be financed through the National Provident Fund. The Health Department had been approached and it had agreed in principle to the idea.