Wool off board’s eyes

Press, 12 May 1984, Page 1

Wool off board’s eyes

By

JANE ROSKRUGE

A sheepish explanation emerged from the Canter bury Hospital Board yesterday. It seems the much-pub-licised proposal to replace woolly underblankets now used in board hospitals with totally synthetic rugs was never on. The board’s deputy chief executive, Mr Bill Watson, said that a batch of 500 synthetic rugs ordered from England was a stop-gap measure because of a temporary supply problem with the New Zealand product. Incorrect statements from the board’s central laundry manager, Mr Ray Urquhart, have caused some red faces round the board table. Mr Urquhart said last week that the synthetic rugs were a trial batch which if successful, would replace the sheep-skin rugs as they wore out. Mr Watson said yesterday that “that would be ludicrous in a major wool producing country.” The board intended to continue buying the New Zealand rugs, natural wool with only a synthetic backing, once the producer sorted out the supply hitch. Mr Urquhart had ordered the English batch, 100 of which were air-freighted to New Zealand for immediate use, without advising the board. To make matters worse, the first that board members heard of the replacement idea was when he appeared on television. Many telephone calls and “letters to the editor” later, it was made clear at a board committee meeting on Wednesday that the wool had been pulled over some people’s eyes.