Alan Tristram says that, if you are ill, then there is no better place to be than the Hutt Valley Hospital.

 I speak from experience.

Despite a crumbling building, everyone from the admission clerks onwards to the Operating Theatre staff in the Plastic Surgery unit are superb.

They work together like a well-oiled machine.

I put a lof this down to Professor Swee Tan, surely one of the best surgeons in the Southern Hemisphere. We are lucky he hasn’t been lured overseas.

I had a major cancer operation on my neck — and somehow he managed to delicately cut around my left eye to deal with any cancer problems in the nerves running to my brain.

A slight tremor and I could have ended up paralysed down one side of my face.

Thia didn’t happen thanks to him and a team of surgeons, anaesthetists, and nurses — six hours on the operating table.

Thank God for the Hutt Valley Hospital and all our public hospitals.