In 1988 there was a move by the Dunedin City Council to change the rating system from Land Value, to Capital Value.
A group of representatives from all the suburbs of Dunedin met and formed a committee to fight the move to Capital Value Rating, this group was called theRATE CRISIS COMMITTEE
The RATE CRISIS committee held a march from the Exchange to the Town Hall and forced the Council to shift their meeting to the stage of the Town Hall, there was standing room only - every seat in the hall was filled! As a result of this meeting the Council was forced to change the rating system to a mix of Land, and Capital value rating.
The first Chairman was Ruth Murray, with Bill O'Connor as her Vice Chairman.
In 1989 the name was changed to the Dunedin Ratepayers And Householders Association and was then turned into an incorporated society, also in 1989 both the Chairman and Vice Chairman stood down and decided to stand for Council, as a result of this Mr Syd Adie was elected as the new Chairman, Syd just recently retired and a fresh new innovative team have taken over the reins to continue the fantastic work that he started.
Part of Speech made to Southern Hospital Board 5/8/2010
Firstly may I say I know that your finances are controlled by Government and that you as a board are charged with providing the best services to the people of the South that elected you?
It seems to me that at times patients are a secondary consideration to the point that we must save money.
But surely the best way to save money is to have the patient treated at the first point of contact.
In particular I would like to talk about the Mornington Health Centre.
This was set up by Dr Medlicott and associates, firstly in an old house and through the years I have seen the practice rise to what it is today mainly because it came a PHO.
It maybe ok from the Boards point of view to cancel or limit the number of PHO’s, but you must as a Board look at it from the patients point of view.
In other words the general population in the Southern District you serve.
If you are sick and need treatment you normally go firstly to the doctor.
In most instances Mornington Health can deal with you.
So I ask where is the savings to the Southern Health Board when patients will have to be referred to the hospital because some services have been cut from this surgery.
Would it not be better to treat the patient at Mornington Health Centre rather than have them have to wait for an appointment to be seen at our overstretched hospitals?
Will we have to go back to raffles to keep services like the pickup Van going?
I ask is it a case of just shifting patients from one place to another further clogging up this already over stretched hospital.
Some formula must be found to enable the Mornington Health Centre and the like to retain the existing services.
It is my belief that if this is not done there will be a decline in the services they can provide and more patients will have to be referred to the Dunedin Public Hospital.
I believe that I would have spent more time in the Hospital if it had not been for the dedication of Dr Medlicott and the new breed of Doctors & services provided by Mornington Health Centre.
We all know when we read reports in the newspaper it is the reporters interpretation on what is said at board meetings.
I have spoken to Dr Burton on several occasions and I know when he speaks what he says make sense and he is right on the button and lives could be lost if we don’t have a Neu-ro-surgery service in Dunedin.
I am glad to read the comments by Prof Campbell I agree that we some times need treat multiple ailments and people like me may need these services.
You know Dunedin is a strange place regardless of being told we can’t have a cat scan or the number of people that complain about the stadium being on our rates we find away to do these things and I see it as no different with the Neurosurgery we will fight and we will keep it here some how.
Maybe it’s an appropriate time for these issues to surface with this board up for re-election this year.
This is part of a Syd Adie presentation to the hospital board
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