AN OPEN LETTER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27081, 16 May 1949, Page 4

AN OPEN LETTER

TRIBUTE TO DOCTOR PLEASANT VALLEY PATIENTS PERTINENT OBSERVATIONS So concerned are 35 patients of the Pleasant Valley Sanatorium at the departure of the Otago Hospital Board’s tuberculosis officer, Dr Brian C. Thompson, for overseas, that they have addressed to him an open letter, a copy of which they handed to the Daily Times. The report of Dr Thompson’s departure was published in the Daily Times on Saturday. “ Some of us are waiting to leave the sanatorium, and take, our places in the community again,” the patients wrote. “We have benefited by your knowledge and skill, and we are grateful that our treatment will have concluded before you leave. We, find we have a new attitude towards tuberculosis, too. We no longer regard the disease with fear, but with understanding. We are confident and ready to resume our places in society and with our families. “ Some of us are waiting for treatment,” the letter continued. “We are wondering what is going to happen to us now. We, above all others, know what your departure means to tuberculosis patients in Otago. We know there is no one here with the knowledge, and energy to take your place, and we wonder if there will be a regression to the treatments that were used before you came. Some of us are long-standing' cases. We can remember when people came to the sanatorium simply to stay here, .when effective surgical treatments were invoked rarely, and when even X-rays were few and far between.

“ There were 151 new cases of tuberculosis in Otago last year, and we wonder what is going to happen to the 151 next year, and the year after that. “We know, too, that your service to the community cannot only be measured in terms of Human happiness, but also in cold hard cash. It is said that it costs £l4 to keep one patient at the Pleasant Valley Sanatorium for one week. When it is known that your skill and that of your. associates have reduced the average term in hospital to a fraction of what it was before, the saving to the Hospital Board and the community is seen to be a big one. “We would like you to know how grateful we are for your efforts on our behalf. We know that you often work for seven days in one week. We know you have had to contend with obstacles and prejudice, and we know what a gigantic task it has been to build New Zealand’s best tuberculosis service in Otago.”