Letters to the Editor

St John needs funding

St John Ambulance does a fantastic and crucial job if well-manned.

How can it be that such a critical service is struggling for finance with many ambulances now forced to operate single-handed.

How can a driver attend to a patient who may be fitting, choking or bleeding, while keeping focused on dashing through traffic?

It should be illegal for a person to go out alone on a callout.

I first encountered a solo driver on Waiheke after a compound fracture of my ankle. After 25 minutes scrambling on my backside down a hill to telephone for help, I was shocked when the driver arrived and asked me to go down a track and over a ditch to the road. I was lucky two young men nearby were called to assist.

As a qualified nurse I was staggered to learn that a single operator was not uncommon. That was 2006. Ten years later the situation has worsened, even though St John should be the most extolled service group in the nation.

Why is there no outcry from the community? Where is our Minister of Health?

The better the triage care on site, the better the outcomes. This could save ACC in the long run enormously.

St John staff are subjected to the most horrible sights and situations routinely and we seem to take it for granted. The staff wages are insulting for the work and responsibility they bear.

They actually save lives - what price do you put on that?

We have a Government that could stump up $26 million to promote a new flag nobody much wanted, and yet St John is left begging and volunteers run cake stalls.

ROSEMARY BARAGWANATH, Whanganui

Trump at a new level

I see how some here may misunderstand the level of outrage in the United States, from mass demonstrations to sustained outcries in the media against a newly-elected president.

I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime - but this is not a normal presidency nor is this a normal Congress.

The Tea Party Republicans, joined at the hip with the president, represent the most right-wing, militaristic, xenophobic and racist elements of American society. They have used undemocratic gerrymandering, dark money and unprecedented voter apathy to take over Congress.

And then we have President Trump. Certainly all presidents lie - Obama was no exception - but Trump has taken the big lie to a new, dangerous level.

Pulitzer Prize winning Politifact documented that a whopping 69 per cent of all his statements have been false - often so audaciously they make George Bush look like a boy scout - while prominent psychiatrists have recently suggested that this man is mentally unstable.

Respected former Secretary of Labour Robert Reich recently wrote of 15 warning signs of impending tyranny historically based on banana republics and early 20th century fascist dictatorships. And he states that the Trump administration has already passed each one of the 15 tests to a frightening degree.

From claiming massive voter fraud with zero evidence, to calling the media "scum", this has become a terrifying brave new world.

BRIT BUNKLEY, Whanganui

Brave soldiers

Never in 20 years of reading Potonga Neilson's letters has he ever praised the brave colonial soldiers who liberated the Taranaki province from the all-powerful, conquering Hau Hau who marauded and raped at will.

It wasn't until the colonial troops defeated the Hau Hau at Waitotara that local Maori could bring their posteriors out of the bush.

BOB HARRIS, Whanganui

History retold

Potonga's delusions get worse (Chronicle, February 3).

To him the inter-tribal wars of pre-1840 were "mythical" - even though about a third of the population was slaughtered.

Of the Ngapuhi raid, the encyclopedia Te Ara says: "In the early 19th century ... Ngāpuhi and [other tribes] raided Taranaki, armed with muskets. They defeated the Taranaki tribe and captured slaves skilled in the preparation of flax.

The work of these slaves earned income for the northern tribes and enabled them to buy muskets for further expeditions."

In the 1830s, it was the Waikato who almost depopulated southern Taranaki, hundreds dying in the victors' ovens. In 1840 a few dozen lived in mortal fear of the Waikato near the Sugarloaf Islands, ready to flee there at the slightest cause for alarm, with a couple of families in the bush near Opunake.

As for the Ngati Ruanui, a principal chief of Kapiti (probably Te Rauparaha) said: "They were of the worst tribe of persons in the whole of New Zealand; renegades and people that had escaped from various tribes for thefts and every crime that could possibly be thought of."

Does Tony Sole's book mention this?

- Edited

BRUCE MOON, Nelson