Alexander (Sandy) Milne

I was greatly encouraged by the letters of support from Mayor Victor Luca and former Beacon reporter Keith Melville following the put-down of myself by correspondent Aimee Mackenzie (We need doers, not divas, Beacon, July 2).  Many other Beacon readers/friends have bailed me up since then with similar kind sentiments.

I urge readers to join me in carrying no ill-will against the writer. I presume that she is new to our neighbourhood.

Regarding the comments of our team's work in controlling hepatitis B, which Dr Luca and Mr Melville mentioned, I take this opportunity to add an important postscript.  Monday's Radio NZ headlines included a worrying report that a quarter of New Zealand’s newborn miss out on childhood immunisations, largely due to misinformation from anti-vaxxers.  Although the risk from hepatitis B has dramatically diminished, other vaccine-preventable diseases remain a great threat.

On the same topic, last week I picked up a pamphlet on meningitis from my pharmacist.  It was headlined, "meningococcal disease can take a life in 24 hours".  As a former hospital lab scientist, I witnessed that happen several times.  The most memorable was the death of a Māori lass in her early teens.  The doctor and myself had great difficulty obtaining a blood sample on which to carry out the lab tests.

I was motivated by that event to focus on meningitis, and in 1976 the NZ Medical Journal published my first scientific paper, entitled Developing or Normocellular Bacterial Meningitis.  Lab scientists across New Zealand had contributed.  Wellington virologist Dr William Hamilton and I reported a serious failure in the processing of cerebrospinal fluid from meningitis patients.  Labs were not routinely culturing spinal fluid unless there was microscopic evidence of pus cells.  The medical journal summary of our paper included this: "It is considered necessary to perform bacterial cultures of all cerebrospinal fluids investigated for possible infective conditions, even if of normal cell count, biochemistry and eye appearance".  That Whakatāne Hospital paper (NZMJ 1976, 84: 6 - 8) resulted in a change of practice nationwide.  

The relevance of the two paragraphs above is that we should have a full on-site microbiology lab in Whakatāne and similar centres in New Zealand, not only for deadly serious conditions, but for all infections where patients should get timely diagnosis, especially if antibiotics are to be prescribed.

I do not rest my case there.  I invite comments from critics, then support from community leaders.