Soldier silhouettes filled with poppies now decorate the QE Health Wellness and Spa building. Photo / File
Soldier silhouettes filled with poppies now decorate the QE Health Wellness and Spa building. Photo / File
In reply to a recent letter critical of the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust's grant to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Community Trust to help with a 75th anniversary ball (Letters, April 4).
We feel this anniversary is very auspicious and deserves a proper celebration. It will also be a commemoration ofour origins as the Services Convalescent Hospital for soldiers returning from the battlefields of WWII.
The hospital opened in March 1942, with an initial intake of 75 patients - a sanctuary to heal body, mind and spirit. That remarkable work has continued since then and does still, in our proudly battered old building. We are a not-for-profit trust and last year, alone, we provided 100,000 separate treatments to our community.
All proceeds from the ball, dinner and charity auction on September 2 will go to QE Health's new building fund. We couldn't run this event without the generous support of the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust, local businesses and auction item donors.
Our Anzac Day Yarnbomb is also proving very popular. Seven soldiers created from about 4000 poppies knitted by more than 100 generous folk in our community and round New Zealand. Anyone can make a pledge at qehealth.co.nz/yarnbomb. Proceeds of this will go to the QE Health new building fund and the RSA Welfare Fund.
Moral crisis We have a moral crisis over shelter. The effects of the widespread switch from long-term to much-higher-priced short-term rentals were described two months ago by the RDRR.
Council was urged to act promptly, to better reconcile community and entrepreneurial values.
Despite encouragement, only symbolic action followed. A council press release February 13 claimed that "staff had been investigating options" during the last few months.
Two days later the chief executive was instructed by council to investigate legal issues and how other councils have adjusted their policies and regulations. Six weeks later another press release about Annual Plan consultations asked if "locals want more rigorous regulation", meaning that any programme planning has now been stalled until July.
Meanwhile, three-year-long trends continue. Families are being forced by escalating rents to move to find somewhere to live, disrupting children's education and health, and increasing mental illness and domestic violence. A small number of owners with substandard accommodation are exploiting the most vulnerable. Charities even more desperately need emergency accommodation.
What should we do? First, learn to ignore the self-appointed guardians of "positivity" who habitually accuse council's critics of "negativity". They prefer the council's imaginative narrative, Vision 2030, The Rotorua Way, rather than respond to the awful reality.
Second, insist that we are a better people than this with a civilised sense of humanity. The housing crisis is a moral crisis in our community. Faith, social, cultural and business leaders are invited to demand much more compassionate government. Thank you.
