One poignant page relates the story of Jane Hope, a fictitious character who represents hundreds of young mothers as she pleads for a safe journey through her pregnancy and childbirth.

The site is refined daily and additions are made continuously.

To gain a broad, in-depth awareness of the critical community issue surrounding Pambula Hospital readers of this newspaper are urged to browse this site at www.savepambulahospital.com

Gra ham Pettigrove

Pambula.

Use of Kiah bore questioned

The article entitled “Eden/Pambula water supply good following recent rain” (Magnet 22/10, page 3) contains a graph which showed that the shire continued to pump water from the Kiah aquifer while there was no surface flow in the river. Prior to a modest rain event in June, the aquifer was so depleted that some important refuge pools downstream from the bores went dry. The June rain event only produced a surface flow for a very short period, so that the opportunity for fish-breeding migration was extremely limited.

The fact that the Ben Boyd Dam remained full throughout this period is astounding. One has to wonder why it was ever built. The water in the dam will be festering away in the sun, losing volume through evaporation and becoming more concentrated in nutrients and contaminants.

Water left in the aquifer would be undiminished by evaporation and safe from the risk of developing a toxic algal bloom. Once the surface flow ceases, there would be no significant “loss” of water downstream, so that there is no loss of the potential volume available for future use, if the drought were to persist.

A more responsible approach to managing the urban water resources in the Tantawangalo-Kiah scheme would be to draw down the off-stream reservoirs when surface water flow fails in the Towamba River, so that the water held in the sun-exposed reservoirs turns-over more frequently. The last significant upgrade to the scheme was the construction of the Yellow Pinch Dam. This was meant to provide for urban users until 2005/06. The pipeline from the Bega Sands to Yellow Pinch is long overdue, and yet Council continues to approve new residential developments, including some with swimming pools!

The health of lower Towamba River is being jeopardised by the Bega Valley Shire’s excessive extraction from the Kiah bores while the Shire’s urban residents have enjoyed unrestricted water supplies throughout the longest period of no stream flow since records commenced.

Mick Harewood

Kiah

GSAHS: get out of your bureaucratic bubble

I refer to the article in the News Weekly October 21 in which Dr Joe McGirr, spokesman for Greater Southern Area Health Service suggests that the pregnant women of the Far South Coast should prepare themselves better for their confinement.

I ask Dr McGirr just exactly how he expects them to do this apart from having a bag packed and awaiting the first contraction.

Maybe he imagines that strict negotiations with the babies in question could take place while still in utero, to plan a time that suits both ambulance officers and Bega Hospital staff.

With local mothers-to-be already nervous about the uncertainties surrounding giving birth in this shire, Dr McGirr needs to understand that these women are probably amongst the most prepared in Australia right now.

Could he explain how Kerrie Chester could have avoided her early and spontaneous labor, resulting in her delivery in Pambula Hospital Emergency Room?

Can he, for one minute try to imagine the trauma and fear that Kerrie experienced, faced with the probability of delivering on the roadside on her way to Bega Hospital? It seems unfair both to mothers and ambulance officers to put them into a situation where, should an emergency occur; they would be woefully ill equipped to deal with the consequences.

I suggest that there was nothing lazy or un-planned about Kerrie’s birthing plans, nor the plans of either of our local girls who delivered in their own bathtubs.

I suggest that, given the choice, they would have avoided these appalling situations at all cost.

Apparently many babies are born in ambulances every year.

Maybe so, but does this make it preferable?

And do those ambulances drive straight past a fully functional maternity unit, which has been ruled ‘out-of-bounds’ to its doctors and midwives?

The United Nations World Health Report 2005 claims that: “A woman should be able to give birth in an appropriate environment close to where she lives and that respects her birthing culture.”

Since when was the GSAHS above the jurisdiction of the UN?

To imply that women have control over the arrival time of their baby is to display a breathtaking level of ignorance and arrogance, and is doubly shocking coming from a clinician who surely should know better.

It also confirms our suspicions that those making decisions on our behalf are out of touch with the real and desperate situation we live with everyday.

Is Dr McGirr implying that pregnant mothers should all camp on the Bega Hospital grounds in case they need to get there quickly?

A trip out of the” bureaucratic bubble” would be beneficial for all.

Sharon Tapscott

Lochiel