‘Dangerous to stop planning’

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34103, 16 March 1976, Page 16

‘Dangerous to stop planning’

Failure to continue planning for a health centre at Cheviot would be “expensive and dangerous,” the institutions committee of the North Canterbury Hospital Board was told yesterday.

“We have spent a lot of time and money on the project, and the people in the area have been pretty longsuffering,” said Mrs M. McG. Clark.

“Dropping the issue now would put us right back to square one,” she said. The committee had been told that work oh the establishment of health centres throughout the country was to be cut to a minimum. This directive was issued by the Department of Health following the Government’s decision to set up a health centre advisory committee under the chairmanship of the deputy Director-General of Health (Dr R. A. Barker). It was likely that the Government policy on health

centres could be changed, the meeting was told. Because of this work on establishing them was to be cut back pending the outcome of the advisory committee’s deliberations. The delay in progress on health centres planned in the North Canterbury Hospital Board area would be costly in time and money, Mrs Clark said.

“To leave the time for the advisory committee’s deliberations open-ended seems dangerous and expensive to me,” she said.

The meeting resolved to find out when the advisory committee would announce its findings, and to press ahead in the meantime with limited investigations into the possibility of a health centre for Cheviot. These would include a survey to determine the cost of the project, and a meeting to gauge the feeling of local residents. Submissions would also be made to the advisory committee once it had been formed.