Pressure builds against cuts

MURRAY WILSON/Manawatu Standard

TROUBLING ISSUE: Janet Webb, Manawatu Stewart Centre Trust manager, addresses the group during a health cuts protest in the library quadrant of The Square on Tuesday.

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About 120 people braved bitterly cold temperatures in Palmerston North's Square to protest MidCentral District Health Board cuts.

However, board representatives stayed indoors, having decided not to attend.

Sixteen speakers called for the community to put pressure on the board and the Government to stop planned "changes" to frontline health services.

"They tell us this is not about cuts, but about change. Well, I beg to differ," said Manawatu Stewart Centre manager Janet Webb.

The services under review include: Star 3, the under-65s rehabilitation unit at Palmerston North Hospital where it is proposed bed numbers be halved, the Diabetes Lifestyle Centre, where most staff would lose their jobs, the overnight shift of the district nursing service, and the sexual health service that would become a referral-only clinic.

The downgrading of in-patient services at the Horowhenua Health Centre has been put on hold, something that Palmerston North Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway said put more pressure on the search for savings in the rest of the district.

But it also showed the power of a community that made it clear they were not going to stand for it.

He said the services the board was prepared to prune back were excellent ones.

"They are going to be pared back to mediocrity, because they were the best."

Community Services Council co-ordinator Geraldine Holmes said families and community groups would have to pick up the pieces if the services were cut back.

"We will have to do so much more, with so much less support."

Nurses' Union representative Lyn Olsthoorn interpreted DHB chief executive Murray Georgel's direction to staff last week not to discuss the reviews with patients as an attempt to silence them.

"We care what happens.

"But don't think they are going to stay around if we lose these services. We have highly qualified, highly skilled nurses who would be claimed anywhere in the world."

Speakers called on those attending to spread the word, to write letters and send emails to the board, the Government and MPs, keeping up pressure to stop the changes.

- © Fairfax NZ News