MAORI TRUST BOARD

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22405, 12 August 1947, Page 4

MAORI TRUST BOARD

FIRST MEETING HELD SOUTH ISLAND TRUST FUND (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 12. The first meeting of the Ngaitahu Trust Board, which was reconstituted by legislation passed last year to adniinister the fund for £300,000 voted under the Ngaitahu Claim Settlement Act of 1944, was held yesterday. The fund was established in settle, ment of the South Island Maori claims and about 5000 Maoris will benefit. The board meeting was addressed by the Prime Minister. Mr. P. Fraser. Mr. E. T. Tirikatene, a member .of the Executive Council representing the native race, was appointed president and Mr. J. Tikau, Lyttelton, vice-presi-dent. Five other members were appointed in accordance with the constitution of the board. The members of the board conferred with officials of the Treasury, Housing Construction Department and the Native Department.

The Cook Hospital can be the embodiment of all sorts of things, it depends on how you go there. To the ready ill person it is a sort of Mecca where all ills can be cured; to the not-so-ill patient it is ... . Well, it’s all in the point of view! I went as a blood donor and, to me it was some sort of H. G. Wells institution with shining and mysterious gadgets in all directions. The first visit was to test the blood and see whether it was suitable (I might have had some disease or been anaemic). This consisted of a couple of peculiar but quite harmless operations. The first could be described as the octupus hold. A really beautiful nurse dabbed my right arm with some yellow stuff, wound a rubber tube right round it. and just as I was becoming interested and watching the doctor advancing with a sort of syringe, she told me to look away. I turned my head reluctantly away, at which stage I received a slight prick by an assistant who warned me the little glass syringe full of blood. Laboratory Tests The rope was released, the arm dabbed again and I was taken to the laboratory, where I was given another prick bv an assistant ho warned me that “I would jump" I didn't jump and to my surprise received the prick in my thumb, not the arm. , Then a few particulars were taken, including my age. home and office addresses and the hours I desired to be available. I was surprised to see that if the donor desired it was possible to note the card with, "Do not call on Saturday afternoons,” or a similar remark. Just two weeks later while I was at the office my zero hour arrived. The conversation on the other end of the wire was something like this. "We're so sorry to ring you in office hours but we’ve already rung four donors who are unable to come and we are needing some blood of your group urgently. Could you take a taxi (at the hospital's expense), bring your tyne card and come now?" ‘ Could I? Of course, wasn’t it in the firm’s time? Arrived at the hospital. I don't feel so philanthropic but am firmly taken to the lab, where more details are taken and where they tell me they are finding out whether my blood will mix with the donee’s. It appears that even if the group is correct, sometimes the biood is unsuitable Mv attention is momentarily distracted by one of the assistants, who rings the theatre and announces that “the blood has arrived.” Into the Theatre A little later I see the inside of an operating theatre for the first time in my life when I am escorted to the operating table by another charming nurse who asks sympathetically if it is my first time The sister arrives and inspects mv arms, deciding that the left one will do. This is extended and placed at right angles on a sort of a board and the doctor’s entrance is awaited. He takes one look at the left arm and decides. that he prefers the right, whereupon that arm is put onto the board and the business of donating blood really basins.

There is a vague sort of prick and a considerable amount of poking about, which I endeavour to watch through the big light suspended directly above me. I can see little but the back of several heads, however, and can feel less. I am also busy opening and shutting my hands, which they tell me (Reluctantly, the way doctors always do) is to make the blood flow. I finally manage to screw my head round and have a look at what they are doing and find that they have taken a considerable quantity already. I am surprised at this as so far I have experienced very little sensation at all. There is a long tube running from my arm into what looks like a big lemonade bottle and some pumping gadget behind my head.

The nurse holds my other hand all the time, which is pleasant but not really necessary, and finally the doctor stops whatever he is doing, thanks me very sincerely for coming up and disappears. Upon making insistent pleas. I am allowed to see the seven-eighths of a pint which I have donated and am then told to stay lying on the operating table for about 10 minutes and I am then allowed to sit up and asked whether I would like a cup of tea or a glass of brandy. The latter appeals enormously, but I decide on the tea. which is brought to me with dainty sandwiches (still on the operating table) and after a short chat with the nurse. I am carefully assisted off the table, into my shoes and coat and taken to the front door. I felt very fit and in no way faint And that’s aP there is to it!