Contrary

Call me contrary if you will, but as soon as I heard Air NZ had had a computer meltdown   I wanted to check the website to book a flight.

I resisted the temptation so was unaffected by the problem, unlike the 5000 travellers who had flights delayed or were otherwise inconvenienced by the malfunction.

Dr Pat Farry

A death notice in the weekend ODT:

Farry, Dr Patrick Joseph, MNZM, FRNZCGP . . . doing what he loved most caring for the people of the rural area. . .

Dr Farry was a champion for rural medicine and rural health services.

Among his achievements was the development and delivery of the undergraduate Rural Immersion Programme at the University of Otago’s Medical School.

This scheme takes 20 fifth year medical students into rural hospitals for a year in the hope it will encourage some of them to return to rural medicine when they graduate.

I never met Dr Farry but he was often quoted at meetings when I was on the board which ran Oamaru Hospital and I am grateful for the good work he did as a practitioner in and advocate for rural medicine and health services.

The ODT profile of Dr Farry when he was awarded the MNZM is here.

Aotearoa Psalms

Since it’s Sunday, today’s offering for New Zealand book month is Aotearoa Psalms by Joy Cowley with photos by Terry Coles, who is her husband.

Joy is best known as the author of children’s books, she has also written adult fiction. I came across this collection of meditations on my mother’s bookshelf.

I especially liked this from God of The Absurd:

Tune my ear to the laughter

of your universe

and help me to understand it

as my own.

And this from Do Dogs go to Heaven?

. . . I can’t count the times God has loved me

through small furred and feathered things,

how often I’ve been taught through them,

lessons of trust and playfulness,

simplicity and self-acceptance.

And since I do believe that heaven

is not so much a place as a state of being

I can say to my own mokopuna,

“Yes there are dogs in heaven.”

Post 11 in the post a day for New Zealand Book Month challenge.

 Deborah has another Lynley Dodd favourite, Slinky Malinky Cat Flaps at In A Strangeland.

Rob gives us two for one at Rob’s Blockhead Blog: Ten Year’s Inside by Tom Scott and A Dagg At My Table by John Clarke.

And over at Kiwiblog David Farrar adds some facts to the figures on reading Kiwi books.

Greenpeace gets wrong target again

Greenpeace activists have been arrested after painting an anti-Fonterra slogan on a ship in New Plymouth.

It was another protest against the importing of palm based animal feed.

There may be bio security issues with imported feed which could be a legitimate target for protest.

Whether palm plantations are the environmental problem Greenpeace believes they are is a moot point.

But if the protesters were really concerned about the environmental impacts they’d be targeting the companies and people who buy the many products which use palm oil rather than Fonterra which imports a small amount of the waste product, palm kernel extract.

Southern DHBs to merge

The Otago and Southland District Health Boards are expected to merge.

The boards have been working closely together with some members from each sitting on both. A merger is the logical next step.

A merger of the Otago and Southland district health boards would immediately save a minimum of $500,000, with savings of at least $1 million expected longer term as duplication of board and committee meetings was cut, ODHB chairman Errol Millar said last night.

 It will also mean better service and some choice for patients, especially in Central Otago.

Cancer patients from Queenstown have to travel to Invercargill for chemotherapy treatment even though it could be provided at Clyde Hospital which is closer because Queenstown is covered by the SDHB and Clyde is under the ODHB. When the boards merge this sort of bureaucratic line drawing will stop.

The merge might persuade neighbouring boards in other areas to join forces too. Twenty one district health boards for a population of 4 million is administration overkill and a ridiculous waste of time, energy and money.

October 11 in history

On October 11:

1852 Australia’s oldest University, the  University of Sydney, was inaugurated

1861 The first Cobb & Co coach ran from Dunedin to Gabriels Gully.

1884 Eleanor Roosevelt, US First Lady, was born.

1899 The Second Boer War began.

1926 Neville Wran, Premier of New South Wales, was born

1984 Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan beccame the first Americanwoman to perform a space walk.

2007 The record high of the Dow Jones Industrial Average occured at 14,198.10 points.

Sourced from Wikipedia & NZ History Online.