Southern air was ‘killing me’
Etched in Joan Cuttriss’ mind is the moment a doctor told her she would die if she did not leave her hometown of Christchurch.
‘‘The doctor in the hospital said, ‘Mrs Cuttriss, if you don’t get out of here, we’re going to bury you’. When he said that to me, I just wanted to keep living.’’
She believes the dust and pollen from the Canterbury plains was triggering her asthma.
Now in her late 70s, Cuttriss claims she has not had an attack in more than 30 years – ever since she and her late husband made the shift to Wellington in 1980.
University of Otago public health physician Dr Lucy Telfar Barnard said that could happen, if a person’s asthma was sparked by certain environmental things but triggers were different for everyone.
Particular types of grasses on the Canterbury plains could trigger some people, she added.
‘‘But if their asthma is triggered by dust mites, then moving to Wellington isn’t going to help because we have dust mites here too,’’ said Telfar Barnard, who is based at the university’s Wellington school of Medicine.
Based on the number of asthma-related hospitalisations per 100,000 people in 2015, Canterbury District Health Board had fewer than its Capital & Coast counterpart, with 131.4 and 149.5 respectively, according to a report Telfar Barnard authored.
But Cuttriss said her early life in Dunedin, and later living in Christchurch ,was plagued by journeys to hospital – often to the intensive care unit. ‘‘We went to Hanmer once and I came back to Christchurch in an ambulance, siren screaming ... I thought I was nearly dead.’’
Born in Dunedin, Cuttriss was one of six children and the only one of her siblings who suffered crippling asthma from about the age of 4.
She remembered growing up with a mother who would make her go to her job as a typist when she was struggling to breathe.
‘‘When I got to work, they would say ‘what are you doing here when you can barely breathe?’ Mum couldn’t accept I was the sick one.’’