Letters to the editor: Community pushes for Rotorua rescue helicopter comeback

A reader says a rescue helicopter service is needed in Rotorua. The BayTrust rescue helicopter (pictured) was disestablished in 2018.

Re: Gary Payinda’s article on the case for flying doctors and paramedics (Daily Post, March 28).

From 1999 to 2018, Rotorua had a successful and fully functional Rescue Helicopter Service operating from the Rotorua Hospital and on-call 24/7, with highly trained crews consisting of the pilot, a senior paramedic and a crew member and also, when required, a doctor or a nurse.

Missions were flown to accidents throughout the Bay of Plenty area and beyond to retrieve patients and get them to hospital within “the golden hour”, the time limit deemed to have the best possible outcome for the patient.

The Rotorua community was 100% behind the rescue helicopter from the moment it was launched in 1999 as an initiative by the general manager of the New Zealand Forestry Corporation, concerned at the number of forestry workplace accidents and the time it was taking to get them out of the bush into hospital.

Rotorua’s rescue helicopter served until, in my view, a change of Government and politics saw our rescue helicopter wrenched away from our city and the people of Rotorua.

We would love to see a rescue helicopter service back in Rotorua.

Sharyn Taylor

Ngongotahā

Reluctant Ngāpuhi

In a socialist-leaning society, the normal tendency after a generation or so is to look to central Government as having all the tools necessary for a peaceful and prosperous existence.

We shirk our responsibilities, firm parenting, job seeking, even the home garden has been forgotten, expecting the state to take up any slack.

For Ngāpuhi, this seems to be the case when faced with a meth crisis.

A cry to Police Minister Mark Mitchell is a natural demonstration of this phenomenon, but with an economy in strife, I’m guessing most promises will fall short of the ideal.

Perhaps he should offer some help in the form of support for a tribal-based approach, a strengthening of Māori Wardens’ powers of arrest and punishment, as well as parenting and budgeting courses to encourage self-help attitudes.

Ngāpuhi’s reluctance to unite in the interests of Treaty settlements should be addressed as well, there could well be prosperity at the end of conciliation.

“A house divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” – Mark 3:25.

John Williams

Ngongotahā

Immigration overhaul

According to economist Brian Easton’s latest book, there are no economic benefits from migration.

The downsides are higher house prices, higher rentals and strain on our education system and infrastructure.

Migrants get access to our job market, free education, free healthcare, a universal old-age pension and a very valuable passport.

What do New Zealanders get out of the migration deal? The first of my ancestors arrived here about 800 years ago from the vicinity of Tahiti.

Most of my ancestors arrived in the 19th century from various parts of England, Scotland and Denmark.

This country is their patrimony to me and other genuine New Zealanders.

But both National and Labour are willing to give away our patrimony to the lowest possible bidder.

I do not recollect any of our political parties going to the electorate to see if New Zealanders like being colonised by hundreds of thousands of people from dystopian kleptocracies.

Worse, our politicians are too scared to do more than tinker with immigration policy when a complete overhaul has been needed for decades.

C.C. McDowall

Rotorua

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