The Courier has kindly published my letters on decade-apart anniversaries. I figure 2016 must be my last. In my boyhood, Ballarat Base Hospital was truly a formidable entity. I'd been forceps-born there mid-1932 (medical students watching in theatre #1, same for the thoracotomy) and had returned as a four-year-old to spend a few weeks in isolation ward with diphtheria; ultimately parting company with my tonsils.Pretty routine remedies of that era.

All buildings involved are long gone; some had been condemned pre-war. My key personnel of 1946 are also long gone, but I've never forgotten anaesthetist Dorney, surgeon Greening, gp Richardson, ward-sister Williams and my favourite nurse, Mona nee Banning. My previous letters have given well-deserved praise to them, and I can now add that my own family boasts a brace of professionals in the same specialties. Fitting! And since 2006, it has produced two new Adelaide granddaughters (makes five, and one grandson) plus four great-grandsons. Consider what might be missing today had September 1946 not turned out so successfully for me.

Francis Peter Duggan, Chisholm

A million council dollars left over? Here are some things you could use it on;

1. Fix the car park at the back of the badminton stadium that has been like this for twelves months or put a water slide there to go with the water that does not drain away. Oh no, wait on, I was told by someone from the engineers' department that it does drain towards the tennis centre. Great works done there.

2. Re-do or at least seal the roads to the baseball parks where the road ceases at the roundabout, and fix the aquatic centre roundabout at the same time.

3. Or maybe have lights placed along Ring Road for night travel as it's very dark. Then we could have Gregory Street opened up.

You have a million dollars to spend; do something constructive, not waste it on a slide that will only service a few. Try being a bit more progressive with your decisions. Give and do something that is not making you a council ratepayers despise for not being forward-thinking and creative. This is a challenge for the mayor, councillors and our new CEO to step up. Don't forget you work for us.

Neil Henderson, Alfredton

 States deserve better

The members of the Commonwealth Grants Commission, have every right to be furious with the Prime Minister's ill-considered proposed change to the way in which the GST is carved up between the States. The independent Commission, since its establishment 83 years ago, has developed a highly complex and robust methodology, which for the purpose of distributing the GST, takes both the States' expenditure disabilities and revenue raising capacities fully into account, on an annual review basis. Furthermore, the Grants Commission eliminates any wide-ranging annual fluctuations in the yearly GST carve up, by applying a three year moving average to its recommendations. Consequently, the concerns that the Western Australian Premier, Colin Barnett has over his State's recently diminished mining royalties, are already addressed in the Commission's methodology. The suggestion made by the Prime Minister to introduce a floor in the GST carve up, will simply remove from the Constitution each State's capacity to provide its citizens with equal levels of government services., 

Ian Lawson, Carina Heights