Opinion: Rotorua a 'pretty damn fine place' already

Fireworks welcome 2018 at the Rotorua lakefront. Photo/Ben Fraser

What interesting reading our leaders' and residents' 2018 wish list (Rotorua Daily Post, January 1) makes.

Some are just plain baffling – take the 20-year-old featured in the Street View section who hankers for more family-oriented options for exercise at parks in the lakefront. Really?

When I last looked the lakefront was buzzing with walkers, cyclists and chocker with children playing on the Volcanic Playground built specifically for them, not by the council but a big community fundraising drive.

And what about the Village Green that surrounds it, enough space there for family exercise, surely?

What about the Government Gardens, our five youth spaces and skatepark? Like the Volcanic Playground they're there to be used so why not make the most of them?

Can anyone think of a New Zealand city more blessed with parks, reserves, walkways, cycleways, forests and lakes than ours? My advice to this young lady is go out, discover these amazing spaces and places and exercise in them to your heart's content. None will cost you a cent.

Then there were the hardy annual pleas for more things for kids to do and belong to. What about the Youth Centre? It's been open for yonks now with activities and courses catering across the board for youngsters (and some not so young).

Let's not overlook our abundance of youth-focused organisations; Te Waiariki Purea Trust, kapa haka groups, sports clubs, theatres, the children's art house spring to mind.

Goodness, if all that's too exhausting there's always the library to join – free of course.

I'll gloss over the reader who wants Kmart to open "like yesterday".

That's because it's one of local Principals' Association president Briar Stewart's wishes that really stumped me.

Among her otherwise admirable line-up was a plea for, and I quote her here: "A great health system where people know if they go to their GP or the hospital they'll be treated quickly and expertly."

Briar, may I assure you we already are. I speak personally here. In recent days I've had the good fortune (I do not see it as a misfortune) to have required the services of both. In the great scheme of things compared with the seriously ill, my malady was a mere pimple on the rump of the public health system but my conscientious, caring GP deemed it required a hospital visit. A swift admission followed and my name added to an already over-stretched operating list.

As it happened my ailment remedied itself, others weren't so fortunate. And, yes, some had lengthy theatre waits (one room mate was trundled off at 10.30pm).

Don't blame the hospital for that. Medical staff across the departments, from the most junior to the very senior, very expert, work their butts off.

Common sense dictates priority's given to those seriously injured in accidents and the critically ill. Would we have it any other way?

Believe me, our health system is great, we are treated quickly and expertly and, like our open spaces, it comes at no cost. Isn't that what we grudgingly pay our taxes for?

Pious as it may sound my own 2018 wish is that we reflect on what we have got in this pretty damn fine place of ours and give thanks for it.

Jill Nicholas is a contract journalist and former Rotorua Daily Post deputy editor. She has a QSM for services to journalism and the community.