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The issue of Wanganui Hospital's natural therapy pilot programme got Wanganui Chronicle readers fired up this week ["Witchcraft" row flares, October 1].

There was a variety of opinions on whether natural therapies have any value, and what constitutes natural therapy.

Reg Skipworth believed the decision about whether to run the trial - which was for staff only - should have been made by the Whanganui District Health Board members.

"Once again [Kate] Joblin [board chair] and [Julie] Patterson [chief executive] have shown they treat the staff and board with absolute disrespect and I totally understand why [board member] Clive [Solomon] walked out [of the board meeting] and why he is looking into this."

But Elizabeth Stiles-Dawe criticised Mr Solomon for his "endless dramatic performances".

Tim Tam suggested that if people were using natural therapies they should be brought into a hospital environment where they could be properly regulated.

"This pilot aimed to allow hospital staff to utilise (for themselves, not patients) a range of such 'treatments' which were assessed to be harmless, and possibly beneficial. For example, traditional massage. Where is the harm in that?

"And if patients are using these therapies anyway, why not have them brought into the light, where they can be seen to be safe or unsafe, instead of taking a narrow view and damning them to be practised only in secret?"

Petro criticised the staff who used the natural therapy services: "If staff were offered a range of therapeutic services with the aim to improve hospital staff health and wellbeing, what type of people are being employed?"

Readers were also hot under the collar about the Wanganui District Council spending $77,000 to appeal against serial sex offender Stewart Murray Wilson being paroled to Wanganui [$77,000 spent on failed Wilson appeal, October 4].

John Parnell made a list of what $77,000 could buy instead.

It included a 2.5km footpath, more than two years' salary for Wanganui's street cleaners, enough grass seed to cover Wanganui Airport, or the subsidising of 38 ratepayers' rates.