Hospital closing

Press, 6 December 1985, Page 10

Hospital closing

Sir,—Endorsing Alison Locke’s letter (November 29), maternity services in Christchurch are taking a giant step backwards from what used to be a wide range of options. Is it not time one of the largest consumer services in the city surveyed what the consumers want from the service? Women need to be able to trust those assisting and to have some control of the experience for childbirth to be positive, but the present cattle market style, with forced early discharges, can only scar the event. A new mother with feeding problems and painful stitches was discharged after four days to a farm more than 100 km

away. What sort of service is that? These moves make home births more attractive, but while each home birth saves hundreds of dollars, domiciliary midwives are paid a pittance and leave for better-paid work. Hospital board administrators do not have babies. Perhaps if they did, the options would be widened. — Yours, etc., SYLVIA DIXON. Hinds, December 3, 1985.

Sir,—Once again the maternity services in Christchurch are being criticised. The Maternity Action Alliance should have bought Wendover and run it the way it wants care, but I suppose the alliance could not afford this, yet expects someone else to provide the type of care wanted at a price they can afford. These people do not like large hospitals, do not want transfers to small ones, so what do they want? — just an excuse to complain? The small public hospitals are run on much the same lines as Wendover, so mothers do still have a choice of service. Human nature being what it is, it is impossible to please everyone. — Yours, etc., D. MILES. December 2, 1985.

Sharing the blame Sir, — The Integrity Centre, in an advertisement in “The Press” of December 4, claims: “As with drug addiction, homosexuality produces nothing positive other than temporary amusement for its participants.” I fail to see how this statement can be justified when weighed against the weak case for heterosexuality. Divorce, rape and teen-age pregnancy statistics, as high as they are, surely prove that the heterosexual relationship is nothing more than a temporary amusement. The. Integrity Centre should not use homosexuality as its scape-goat. We heterosexuals do not have a great deal to be proud of. — Yours, etc., ELIZABETH READ. December 4, 1985.