His predecessor as surgeon superintendent, Denis Tree, had a very good hospital to pass on, and for the next 24 years Peter delivered a standard and range of surgery and general care that no other small community in the country could have dreamed of.
Several of those who spoke at Saturday night's farewell recalled his extraordinary capacity for work, and more importantly his compassion. Operations manager Neta Smith, who spent many long days with him in theatre, said he had been determined to ensure that everyone who needed surgery would receive it. The fact that many of those procedures were relatively mundane given his experience in South Africa, England and the United States seemed not to bother him.
It is hardly surprising that the Dryburghs, and their children Jonny, Tania and Mark, came to be held not only in high esteem but genuine affection. And their contribution to Kaitaia's medical services went far beyond Peter himself; he has been credited with attracting any number of other South African medics to this far flung corner of the South Pacific, some of whom have stayed and become permanent fixtures themselves.
It was his response to the threat of Kaitaia Hospital losing its 24-hour surgical service - which it eventually did - that earned Peter Dryburgh undying affection in the Far North, however. That battle, which began in 1995 with a government decree that the hospital would become a 'super clinic,' effectively a triage station for Whangarei, raged for seven years, and Peter led the defence.
He was at his finest that memorable day when thousands of people marched through Kaitaia's main street, up the hill to the hospital. A pin could have been heard dropping as Peter argued the case for retaining the hospital before an audience including business people, children, pensioners, even patched gang members.
It also included one representative of North Health, which was charged with making the transformation from hospital to super clinic, who stood with tears streaming down his cheeks as he listened. It's hard to say if that was the turning point, but Kaitaia finally got more than it might have from a government that was busy closing hospitals like Kaitaia's all over the country.
It didn't keep its 24-hour surgical service, but nor did it become a super clinic. And it received a $12 million upgrade. The current model no doubt makes cost-effective use of the resources available to the Northland DHB, even if its enthusiasm for replacing 24-hour surgical cover with a world-class patient retrieval system (a rescue helicopter, in other words), did not stretch quite as far as agreeing to pay for that service in its entirety.
There is no point now in harking back to what was lost, but clearly the final outcome was not the win that some touted it as. Talk on Saturday night of Peter's huge surgical workload suggests that many patients are now been transferred to Whangarei, or going without surgery altogether, despite the efforts the DHB makes to staff the hospital with the people needed to provide a wide range of services.
This newspaper was well aware that Peter stuck to his guns regarding the range of surgical procedures he provided. He and those who gave the orders did not always agree on what procedures should remain on the list, but he was never one to take a backward step, and just kept doing what he had always done. He must have known that his community would always stand by him if push came to shove, but never, in this newspaper's experience, did he wield public support as a weapon, tempting as it might have been.
The couple must have wondered what they had struck when they arrived at their home in Kaitaia on a Sunday night in 1980 though. With a 15-month-old baby to feed they were in desperate need of milk, but everything was shut, as it tended to be in those days. So he called the telephone exchange, the woman who answered instantly deducing that he was the new doctor. Asked where he might find some milk, she replied that her husband was the milkman, and he would be there shortly, which he was. With a couple of bottles of milk.
Who knows if that left Peter and Dinny thinking they had made a massive mistake or that they had found themselves amongst friends? Possibly the latter. (Denis Tree's wife told the Northland Age a not entirely dissimilar story. She and her family had arrived in Kaitaia in the middle of the night (in 1963), and next morning she went to the NAF (where WINZ is these days) to buy curtain material. She was not allowed to pay cash, the man who served her saying everyone in Kaitaia booked everything up, and so must she, a very English woman he had never set eyes on before).
Whatever the nature of the charm that Kaitaia exerted over Peter and Dinny Dryburgh, it worked, and for that the town and its wider community must be grateful. Peter Dryburgh, with his skill and his compassion for the people who came into his care, is a very special man, supported by a wife and family who, as is always the case, must have sacrificed much to enable him to serve as he did for so long.
And one should not forget Denis Tree. A very different man, a one-time Royal Navy surgeon, he might have been, but for more than 40 years he and his successor gave Kaitaia a hospital service that was probably unmatched in small town New Zealand.
Peter said last week that Kaitaia had always been fortunate in terms of its medical people. He was right. And much of the credit for that goes to the man who would have been welcomed at any hospital in the world.
