[This letter first appeared in The Norfolk Islander and on Norfolk Online News, 12 November 2016]

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a hospital as: “An institution providing medical and surgical treatment and nursing care for sick or injured people.” OK, so Norfolk Island has a hospital, doesn‟t it? I seek reassurance elsewhere. The standard American dictionary Merriam-Webster offers: “a place where sick or injured people are given care or treatment and where children are often born”. Even people who speak Australian appear to agree, as the Macquarie Dictionary gives us: “An institution in which sick or injured persons are given medical or surgical treatment.” Phew. I can relax. Norfolk Island has a hospital.

But we‟d better be careful here, „hospital‟ is a pretty technical term, all those long names for diseases, all that techy apparatus, all those white coats and uniforms. So it might be a good idea to check what the United Nations thinks a hospital is, just to be sure. Well the United Nations Statistics Division defines a hospital as: “an institution which offers in-patient care under direct supervision of qualified medical doctors.” (1) So it‟s pretty clear then?

Well no, not necessarily. The Australian Government defines a hospital as “A health care facility established under Commonwealth, state or territory legislation as a hospital or a free-standing day procedure unit, and authorised to provide treatment and/or care to patients.” (2) The key to this definition is that a hospital is what the Australian Government says is a hospital. Oh hoh! Norfolk Island doesn‟t really have a hospital after all, as the Australian Government says it hasn‟t. What it has is a not-hospital, a NIHRACS, a Norfolk Island Health and Residential Aged Care Service.

This seems like Newspeak. Shades of George Orwell‟s Nineteen Eighty-Four? We might recall that that novel, generally agreed to be one of the most outstanding written in English in the twentieth century, is set in the capital of the dystopian state of Oceania (sic), in a world which is characterised by war, government surveillance and political manipulation. There is a special language called Newspeak ordained by the ruling party and its leader Big Brother, the purpose of which is to keep the general population docile by limiting freedom of thought and eliminating concepts such as „freedom‟, and „self-expression‟ that might threaten the stability of the state. As the ruling party requires, brainwashing and torture are the responsibility of the Ministry of Love, shortages and rationing the responsibility of the Ministry of Plenty, while the Ministry of Peace deals with war, and the Ministry of Truth with lies. The main character of the novel, Winston Smith, works for the Ministry of Truth and his job is to rewrite historical articles so that they keep up with the changing ruling party line.

At this point I don‟t know whether to laugh or cry. How threatening a concept is „hospital‟? What mayhem might a Ministry for Infrastructure and Regional Development create in Oceania? And – considering the titles imposed on roles within the Norfolk Island Regional Council by the Australian Government‟s transitional administration – what might the mawkishly labelled „Customer Care Team‟ do in Oceania? Then again maybe Norfolk Island should award an annual Winston Smith Prize to an Australian Government bureaucrat or politician chosen by popular vote? Perhaps too we could all go back to our Orwell to see what really happened? (3)

But to return to the point: I say that Norfolk Island has a hospital, and it appears that most of the world agrees with me.

(1) United Nations Statistics Division, “Hospital”, Detailed structure and explanatory notes, COICOP code 06.3; (2) Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, National Health Data Dictionary, Version 16 (2012), p.2654; (3) Wikipedia, “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, is a good place to start. [Other articles and letters on Norfolk Island available at: http://www.norfolkonlinenews.com/chris-nobbs.html]

*Dr Chris Nobbs is an economist and social commentator currently resident on Norfolk Island, where he was born.
Chris Nobbs*