“Real” retirement at 90 for distinguished doctor
Dr Graham Milne recalls his 1945-1950 involvement in the Friends Ambulance Unit - China Convoy. Photo: Gerard Hindmarsh.
When Dr Graham Milne of Onekaka turned 90 last month, he decided it was finally time to stand aside after 11 years on the board of trustees of the Joan Whiting Rest Home, including two bouts as chairman, and let people with fresh perspectives and business experience take over.
Any way you look at it, he says, this is going to be a crisis year for our rest home.
"It's losing $50,000 a year now, and the subsidy thing just doesn't work for under 30 beds any more. It's critical we retain a rest home in our community, so I see a new one as part of an integrated health facility in Takaka as our best bet now. We've got to be careful about jeopardising this new project by trying to hang onto the old one."
There's no doubting the wealth of experience upon which he bases his assessment.
Born in Christchurch in 1918, Dr Milne attended Christchurch Boys High School before graduating from Otago Medical School. As it was wartime, he joined the army's Home Defence Unit whilst working in Timaru Hospital. In 1945 he was transferred to the military camp at Trentham.
The Germans surrendered before Dr Milne could be sent to Italy, so he accepted a request from the British Quaker organisation, the Field Ambulance Unit (China Convoy), which was looking for recruits in New Zealand. As the war with the Japanese continued, he and Owen Jackson, a motor mechanic, had to fly in "over the hump" from Calcutta in the dead of night to avoid Japanese fighter planes, before landing in Kunming, in the province of Yunnan. Posted to a medical team, and after securing enough trucks and fuel, they headed down to the bombed city of Liuchou, where they dealt with a huge cholera outbreak among the thousands of refugees making their way back to their homes in Eastern China.
With only a year's experience as a house surgeon behind him, the young Dr Milne suddenly found himself making decisions about complicated operations with just the aid of a couple of textbooks about tropical medicine and war-zone surgery he had bought along. At first, his China Convoy pacifist colleagues treated him with some suspicion, since he was recruited from the army, but he proved his worth over and over with not only his medical abilities but also all his practical skills, like driving five-ton trucks when required. His wife Areta and three young children eventually joined him in China after he took over the hospital at Kong Chuen, supported this time by the New Zealand Presbyterian Church. After four-and-a-half years' service there, they slipped out of Canton to the safety of Hong Kong just as the Communist revolution swept through the country.
Stints as hospital superintendent in Apia and chief medical officer in Niue followed before the family returned to Wellington, where Areta was diagnosed with Addison's disease, which landed her in and out of hospital for several years. This effectively prevented the family from accepting further obscure overseas postings. In 1953 Dr Milne started practising as a GP in Lower Hutt and, in time he took on a couple of partners and created one of the biggest medical practices in the district. He moved to Martinborough in 1970 to become the area's solo rural GP. He retained that position for 18 years before retiring from medical practice in 1978, aged 70. While he was in Martinborough he also purchased a 500-acre hill-country farm, running beef, cattle and sheep.
His involvement in rest homes goes back to his practice days in Lower Hutt, where he made regular house calls on patients in these early facilities. In 1967, he was invited by the Ministry of Health to join a committee whose brief was to present to Cabinet an overview of current programmes in long-term care of the elderly, and recommend new national policies. One of the results of the committee's report was that the Government decided to phase out all long-stay geriatric wards in public hospitals and swing the focus to rest homes sponsored by social agencies.
In Martinborough, Dr Milne was effective in lobbying the borough council to convert a building, unwanted by the area health board, into a small rest home owned and managed by a community trust. The idea was taken up with great enthusiasm, and "Wharekaka" is still thriving 35 years later. He was a trustee for 16 years.
Returning to the Mainland was always on his list, so after Martinborough Dr Milne shifted to Golden Bay, where he purchased farms at Kotinga and Onekaka with his son Alec, later shifting to his present 12 acres overlooking the Onekaka Inlet. Areta died after only eight months there.
"I've seen a lot in my capacity as a primary health doctor. You could say I have a professional as well as an age-related interest in rest homes. For a community like Golden Bay, a rest home is an essential part of its primary health services. I will be following developments this year with great interest".
Gerard Hindmarsh
