Fracas on bridge

Press, 12 September 1980, Page 1

Fracas on bridge

Health reporter-

■ Tempers flared yesterday when-elderly and disabled patients and their helpers were barred from taking cars over the temporary bridge at the rear of Christchurch Hospital. The Christchurch City Council has restricted the use of the bridge over the Avon River since Monday, after- a complaint last week by a nearby resident that the bridge.was being used too much and causing traffic congestion on Rolleston Avenue. • The council has told the North Canterbury Hospital Board that it must abide strictly by the terms of a town-planning appeal decision last year. This imposes strict controls on the use of the bridge and rules out any parking for cars at the rear of the hospital. -r Under these terms, the hospital authorities must "as far as possible restrict demand on . the use of the bridge.” Traffic using the bridge “must be restricted to service vehicles,, including Fire Service vehicles and -vehicles deliv-

ering’or collecting infirm patients only.” In one incident yesterday, the driver of • a ” car threatened to drive his vehicle through the gate-bar-ring access to the bridge. He was told by a hospital orderly that he was not permitted to.take his .passenger, an elderly disabled man, across the bridge. The elderly man then; had to walk across the rough planks of the ’ bridge and the thick- shingle to the rear of the. hospital for treatment. A few minutes later the woman driver of a car which had i a' disabled person’s mobility sticker had to put- down an ..elderly patient who also had. to walk, using: his 'walking stick to the rear of- the hospital. ’ .\ '• f Three ', other persons complained to “The Press” ■yesterday that they were now. being barred from taking their cars into the area behind the hospital, although they had been doing so for the last few weeks. All these people are disabled. Mr R. I. Parker, chief executive of the Hospital Board, said yesterday that

restrictions on . the. use of the bridge posed t . an almost impossible' situation for the orderly in control.

In the past when, vehicles had been allowed over the bridge drivers -often got out of their cars and left them parked. The orderly could not. “chase” these people as it would mean leaving his post at .the bridge. “So often the orderly is being led up the garden path by people in : their endeavour to get across the bridge,” Mr Parker said. Dr D. A. Andrews, the medical superintendent of Christchurch ■ Hospital, •said that the orderly had very strict instructions about the use of the bridge. He was sure the orders were being followed.

Mrs Mollie Clark, - a member of the Hospital Board and the Christchurch City Council, said last evening that one way to solve the problem of access across the bridge would be to issue special car stickers from the departments providing hospital treatment. ■