Readers Write

Northern Advocate, 14 December 1943, Page 2

Readers Write

From a report in yesterday’s issue of the “Advocate” the hospital board seems to have once again taken up a non-cooperative at-

SPECIALIST HOSPITAL AT WHANGAREI

titude towards a suggestion from the Health Department

that the hospital should be planned with a view to having a specialist hospital in Whangarei in the near future. Surely there is a lot to be said for the advantages of having specialist treatment here instead of always going to Auckland to receive it. No doubt if the suggestion had come from another source it would have got a different reception from the chairman. Are all those with ear, eye, nose and throat trouble to suffer in the future in this district because of the “dog in the manger” attitude of this board? Is there any better way to build up i Whangarei as the great centre of the North than to co-operate in treating as well as drwing them from the our own invalids here, as over Northland? Is our Chamber of Commerce in Whangarei going to sit still while an opportunity like this passes to not only help the sick, but also to build up the town? It is only the matter of a short time now, and free specialist treatment will also be free to those needing it. Why not co-operate with the department and be prepared when that happens? The chairman of the Hospital Board has consistently for five years tried to pick faults in our Social Security scheme, and now seems bent on stopping all extension of it in this dis trict.? Is it too much to ask members of the board, many of them past thp alloted span of life themselves, to give this scheme of specialist treatment their blessing, so that those parents endeavouring to raise families may receive this treatment free in their own district? Probably other districts in the North would also benefit, and should contribute, but Whangarei town and district will benefk most, and should give a generous lead to the suggestion instead of trying to kill it at birth.—“RESIDENT.”