Letters 1 April
Holism/Science
Through careful monitoring of your PSA blood samples and the nous and diligence of your GP, you become candidate, prostate cancer. After ultra-sound imaging, digital palpation, advanced technique non-invasive tissue sampling/laboratory biopsy, aggressive cancer diagnosed. Treat with seven weeks radiation therapy or radical prostatectomy and hope for best—or die of invasive cancer.
ECG accurately diagnoses your atrial fibrillation. Amazing cutting-edge diagnostic—echo cardiogram—able intricately picture entire heart using sensors applied externally. Able confirm enlarged atrium, prolapsed mitral valve, reduced cardiac efficiency, which can, through pooling blood, result clot formation/stroke. Specific action drugs slow down racing heart, reduce enzyme activity conducive high blood pressure, thin blood, greatly reducing likelihood adverse cardiac event.
Where’s Dip Nat, Dip C Hom, Dip MedHerb, Dip Sht, ThRips? Surely in denial of cytogenesis, surely in the vanguard of the Utopian dreamers who have assured no progress in human social or political development since the beginning of civilisation. The only intelligence out there is in the methodical accrual and implementation of Science. How else could 7 billion voracious homo sapiens populate the earth but through genetic manipulation of plants and animals, industrial farming, medical science, mass production?
Peter Bridgwater
Gifted children
I am interested in connecting with other parents in Golden Bay who are considering entering their children in the One-Day School for Gifted Children in the upcoming term. As this entails a drive over the Hill on Wednesdays it would be great to organise a car pool schedule and cost sharing. We have a van which can be used which accommodates six passengers. Please call me at 03 669 0010.
Inna Shvyrkova
I believe that the ‘abridging’ did change the content of my letter and made it sound as if the changes to health care in Australia were a good thing. That was not the intention of my letter last week. Here is part of the paragraph that was removed:
Then I experienced some of these great ideas about combining services and staff. I have looked into the sad face of an elderly lady who is still able and willing to use the toilet and had to tell her “sorry I can’t take you right now, I’ll come back as soon as I can”. Yep, she sat there until she wet her pants! Without doubt I robbed her of her dignity. A typical shift of 8 hours would involve myself personally having a shower list of 12. Half of those people also needed assistance to eat or drink. So in between times there was breakfast, morning tea and lunch to assist with. Some of who would be dying and scared. Almost all required lifting with a hoist into wheelchairs for showering. Have you ever tried to hurry an elderly person? Good luck, because I could never do it! Staff would leave after shifts in tears, simply from exhaustion and frustration at not providing the level of care we know these people deserve. Driving home I would be mentally checking if I had left anyone on the toilet or lying in bed with a cold lunch sitting just out of reach.
Marie Whitaker
Ed. The GB Weekly will no longer be accepting letters that are far too long. Please make efforts to restrict your letters to 200 words. If you do not want your letter to be abridged, then do not submit it.
Health concerns
We moved to Golden Bay in 1973, and cannot speak highly enough about the medical care we have received ever since. Friends and relations in New Zealand and overseas envy us. We have one dominant concern about what is going on at present. These people who chose to care for us are worried and upset. Their jobs are stressful enough and they should not have to cope with this additional worry.
Jill and Ron Marks
What is happening at the Rototai rubbish dump?
On or about 8 February a big digger and two bulldozers arrived there. They pushed the gorse, broom, rotten logs and earth into windrows. At the same time two trucks with trailers started dumping sand there. This is being hauled from a stockpile at Wainui Bay which has come from roadworks on the Totaranui Road because DOC won’t allow it to be pushed over the side.
After about 10 days the digger was taken away. A week or so later the biggest dozer went. There is still a Cat D4 dozer on site and the trucks are still carting in. I have heard that the project is costing $100,000.
This is ratepayers’ money. Surely it would have been cheaper to plant the area in pine trees and get a return in 20-odd years’ time. I understand that it has been used as a tip for maybe a 100 years.
Could TDC please tell us what it is all about and verify the cost?
Ray Brewerton
Freedom campers
While TDC continues to dither and prevaricate over a solution to this problem, these so-called freedom campers continue to use Golden Bay roadsides, riverbanks and beaches, often signposted as “no overnight stopping/camping” leaving reminders of their eating, toilet, and sex habits in places habitually used by local and visiting families for recreational purposes.
Short of banning all such non-facility vehicles from the Bay, or forcibly moving them to legitimate camp grounds, continued inaction will see the Bay turn into one big outdoor toilet (which is going to look real good to the other visitors coming into the area).
Council, along with the community, must take ownership of the problem and come to an equitable workable solution as soon as possible.
Possible cures are: an overnight camping fee; or all sites gated (this works for DOC in the Molesworth); or a straight no overnight use (enforced) by law, for non-facility campers.
To totally discourage or deter these people from entering and enjoying our slice of paradise isn’t the Kiwi way and one day some of these visitors may choose to return to Golden Bay and become valuable members of our community. But unless and until this situation is sorted our the freedom campers/crappers will continue to be vilified by a large silent Golden Bay majority.
Jeff Woodward
