Health board needs to look wider than hospitals

COMMENTS reported from seven of 28 candidates for Southern DHB (ODT, 3.10.19) were focused squarely on hospitals.

A shame, really, as our complex health system is so much more and includes aged residential care services, home care teams, midwives, oral health and general practice teams to name a few.

The new board will need to find ways to respond to the rising demand for healthcare services. One of these is to enhance the role of many highly skilled communitybased health teams who work tirelessly to help keep people out of hospital. This is especially important in rural areas and highgrowth towns.

Most of us are infrequent users of hospital services, although there is no doubt they are the best place for acute and complex care. But we regularly use primary healthcare services from birth until final days of life, and effort here offers huge potential to improve the health system as a whole.

We need a board capable of fresh thinking and balanced discussion about more than hospitals. Otherwise the woes of the hospital will consume all energy, time and money.

Marion Poore

Arrowtown [Candidate for Southern DHB.]

AFTER 53 years, in our experience, of almost total neglect of Belford St in Waverley, our esteemed city authorities have seen fit to renew kerbing, channelling and other facilities, for which we are thankful.

Moreover, although the nature of this work is, in itself, disruptive, Downer’s contractors have gone the extra mile in preserving access to residential properties in an obliging manner.

However, while we count ourselves lucky, our sympathies go out to residents in other parts of our city, who will likely wait many years to enjoy these advantages; or given the trajectory adopted by recent councils, never live to experience them, while ratepayers’ money continues to be siphoned into ‘‘entrepreneurial’’ enterprises designed to pack yet more tourist visitors into our city.

Of all the candidates standing for election, only a handful seem to have as their focus the welfare of those who ought to come first: Dunedin’s own people; they who see their exponentially rising rates evaporate into airyfairy schemes which deliver little of substance, the spin which features in the periodic mailout of the council’s glowing assessments of its own achievements, notwithstanding.

These are the things we intend to consider when ranking election candidates in order of preference, although despite advice to the contrary, I shall probably start at the tailend of my list, and work my way backwards, eliminating the ‘‘dead wood’’ first. I suspect many other electors will have already done the same. Ian Smith

Waverley

NOT only is it our right to vote in these council elections, it is our duty.

These council members are getting about $60,000 a year for the few meetings they attend in the year, and where does this money come from? It comes from our rates, and we should make sure that it is spent wisely on what we, the ratepayers, want.

It is the candidates’ duty to inform us what they are going into this job for, what is on their minds, what they can do for our city.

It is their duty to fully inform us of their intentions, so we know clearly what we are voting for.

We all have a part to play in making sure our beautiful city is cared for now and for the future. D. Pedersen

Dunedin