Brian Holden: Hospital should stick to its knitting

Maggie Hepburn, aged 8, enjoys Dunedin Hospital's tropical fish tank which is attracting criticism. Photo / File

We know how our public health system cries out for extra funding for improved facilities and a speedier service to needy patients. Cash-strapped Dunedin Hospital is certainly leading the charge with its new $73,000 fish tank, funded by donations. Shame that it has cost more than $1000 a week to run for the first year of operation - and that's not including electricity costs. However, the Southern District Health Board assures that the maintenance bill will be "significantly less" from here on. One would hope so.

You have to ask whether the board is more focused on breeding fish than the treatment and rehabilitation of patients. The initial installation and maintenance has been the responsibility of the University of Otago's marine department who have been involved with "fully establishing the fish tank in a phased manner and introducing additional fish".

We are told that: "The first year's costs are due to the needs of the fish, which included stabilisation of the whole environment of the fish tank."

Future costs, we are told, are to be determined as the environment of the fish tank (which is in the children's ward entrance area) stabilises.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for the fish tank concept. A Rotorua dentist's waiting room has a splendid compact aquatic display to calm patients while they await their fate. But come on, do we need such a ridiculously expensive fish tank in the foyer of one hospital, when we're told that the health system is on the bones of its backside?

Likewise with our own Rotorua District Council that is changing its name to Rotorua Lakes Council as it moves to "refresh" its branding in line with its new direction. The new name is proposed to "fit well with the new direction and vision of the council over the past year". With all those lovely lakes being part of our district, one can see the benefits of such a name change. But look, haven't we spent - in some cases wasted - enough money already? We are told that only "just over $7000 (so far) has been spent on the updated designs and logo concepts", adopting a "staged approach by introducing the new concepts as and when required, such as when cars or business cards needed replacing." Sounds like sensible thinking, but my bet is that it will end up costing heaps more than what was initially budgeted. Rebranding always does. Can't we just stick with the perfectly good name we've got? Oh dear - too late now. It's already rubber-stamped.

And while on the subject of grandiose ideas being propped up by ratepayers' dollars - which makes the above rebranding costs look like peanuts - let's get stuck into outgoing Rotorua Airport CEO Alistair Rhodes' comments regarding the Trans-Tasman pull-out.

I do not blame Mr Rhodes specifically, but I take exception to his "Hindsight is great but foresight (is) better" attitude. Indeed he is bang on when he talks about "poor commercial decisions ..." but referring to the "glory days of the early to mid-2000s" is well wide of the mark. The true glory days were two or three decades before then when the Rotorua Aero, Sulphur City Sky Diving and Gliding clubs were thriving.

Mr Rhodes says that "with the recent focus on the Trans-Tasman service, Rotorua has lost about 80 per cent of its former general aviation activity such as aero clubs and sky diving. And that "the view at the time was you could not combine general aviation with international, so we lost it ". More to the point, unrealistic restrictions were imposed on those clubs and in the end, they were effectively told to pack up their gear and go. Mr Rhodes has the gall to say "there is still some angst out there about that, but there is the chance to get some of it back ..."

Well I can tell you, Mr Rhodes, it's too late. Thanks to the failed Trans-Tasman dream, the fun of flying at Rotorua Airport has long gone and will never return. Having been a pilot back in the "glory days", to me they are now just memories.

The damage has been done, and like many users, I am miffed. Recreational flying here has been destroyed and there's no going back.

-Brian Holden has lived in Rotorua for most of his life and has recently celebrated 10 years' writing And Another Thing.