“Thanks for your email; it has been a torrid time here in Christchurch over the last few weeks since the event of 22 Feb: personally I was quite lucky, as I was in a meeting on the top floor of the Pyne Gould Corporation building one hour before it collapsed.”
So writes Alan Bavis, facilities and engineering manager at New Zealand’s Canterbury District Health Board (CDH) in Christchurch, scene of a further earthquake in late February this year following the one which hit the city on 4 September, 2010. Alan Bavis, who formerly held a variety of engineering roles at the West Lancashire District Health Authority (later the West Lancashire NHS Trust) for 13 years before emigrating to New Zealand in 1995, and who is a member of the New Zealand Institute of Healthcare Engineering (NZIHE), wrote a fascinating account for Health Estate Journal’s November 2010 issue of he and his team’s experiences in the wake of last September’s earthquake. He added in an email written to editor Jonathan Baillie after this February’s event: “Family are all OK, but all three of my offspring now have homes that are written off, or need large remedial works, as well as cars still under rubble in the central city, but at least they are still alive. Christchurch CDB and the eastern suburbs are decimated, and there is a big job ahead to rebuild. Thousands of people are still without water, electricity, and sewage systems, and have to dig holes in the back garden to provide toileting facilities. “The hospitals have all survived, although it got desperate for a few days. We have carried out work over the last two weeks that in normal times would have probably taken us six months to design and tender, and it is really remarkable how everyone has pulled together to get things done. We have also had great support from our colleagues in other district health boards, and the armed forces. “On the humorous side, we were at a meeting with some people who had all arrived in town from overseas, so in the room there were three of us from Christchurch and six from overseas. An after-shock occurred mid-way through, but we just carried on talking while our guests all had a deep intake of breath, and needed a minute to compose themselves. It just shows what you can get used to, although we would be pleased to get this all behind us now.”
