By Jeremy Elwood

The announcement yesterday that the Ministry of Health will keep neurosurgery services operating in both Christchurch and Dunedin, rather than centralising them only in the former, has been applauded as a triumph for (depending on who you listen to) either grassroots democracy, fiscal sense, or a combination of both.

And so it is; but there’s also the small matter of another form of prevailing sense, which seems to be getting lost in the legalese and financial bottom lines – the effect on patients.

The democracy factor is worth dwelling on first, though. Thanks in part to a combined campaign by both the Otago Daily Times and Southland Times – an all too rare example in this era of falling readership and media separatism of two competing newspapers, owned by different companies, putting aside parochialism in support of a bigger cause – the populace of the Deep South came out in force to protest the proposed change.

Public marches, 2256 submissions to the expert panel considering the changes, 21,332 coupons opposing the closure of Dunedin’s unit from ODT readers alone, and over 55,000 signatures on a petition – which equates to over one-third of the total population of Dunedin.

Admittedly, those signatures came from further afield than just the Edinburgh of the South, but however much you spin it, the numbers are impressive.

Even more impressive is the fact that the powers that be actually listened. It’s been too easy in recent times to dismiss the power of protest, as successive governments both here and overseas have paid little more than lip service to petitions and referenda before going ahead and doing what they wanted to anyway.

The closest equivalent that comes to mind is the backdown over mining on Conservation land – but recent revelations about Government negotiations with iwi lend credence to the cynics who always thought that issue was more smoke than fire in the first place.

The idea of closing Dunedin’s neurosurgery department was anything but. Neurosurgery is more than just a handy comparison of skill when you’ve tired of using “rocket science”.

It is a major component of any major hospital, supporting a myriad of other disciplines from Radiology to Reconstructive Surgery. If it’s important to the doctors, though, it’s absolutely vital to the patients.

Unlike, say, a broken leg, which in most cases (unless you do what I did once, and ignore it for three days so as not to miss a date) won’t get more broken if it takes you a while to get treatment, brain injury waits for no one.

Dunedin Hospital is the closest to most of our major skifields, a network of windy, narrow roads, and thousands of locals who participate in local sport – three of the biggest contributors to head injuries in our nation of inveterate risk-takers, dodgy drivers and wannabe hardmen.

The idea that having to transport patients an extra 362km to Christchurch without risking further damage or death was, quite frankly, idiotic.

So it is with a sense of uncommon yet very welcome surprise that I would like to congratulate everyone involved with this decision on the sheer level of common sense they have shown.

Protecting jobs and treatment levels, tying the new hospital appointments in with the world renowned Otago School of Medicine, thus strengthening both institutions, and acceding to the well argued wishes of a local populace. In the end, it was a bit of a no-brainer.