Surgical Team’s Burden

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31087, 16 June 1966, Page 1

Surgical Team’s Burden

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 15. The Government is considering shortening the working term of New Zealand’s surgical staff at Qui Nhon Hospital, South Vietnam, according to the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake). “They are all volunteers and it is not easy to get them,” he said in Parliament today. Mr Holyoake said In some cases he had to appeal personally to hospital boards to “let a man off to serve in Vietnam.” He had been asked by Mr D. Maclntyre (Govt., Hastings) if any improvements could be made to working conditions at the hospital.

Mr Maclntyre also asked if the Prime Minister would give urgent consideration to the report of the Director-General of Health (Dr. D. P. Kennedy), who recently visited the hospital. “Yes, I do have in my possession Dr. Kennedy’s report. 1 haven’t had time to read it all yet but it disagrees with some earlier recommendations made.-

“I think the surgical volunteers there are doing a wonderful job. They must be working to the limit of their endurance,” he said.

Replying to a supplementary question by Mr A. J. Faulkner (Opp., Roskill) the Prime Minister said: “We are continually prodding the Vietnamese authorities into providing more supplies. “The Americans have been very helpful to us and we have even flown supplies from New Zealand.”

Mr Holyoake said, however, it was the responsibility of the Vietnamese authorities to

provide the medical supplies for New Zealand’s surgical team. The surgical team was working in a hospital which was short of 38 nurses and 40 labourers. Mr Holyoake said some improvements had been effected at the hospital such as the

installation of partitions and fittings in the casualty wards and repainting. The main problem was getting local labour. “It is a Vietnamese hospital and the Vietnamese are responsible for recruiting help for the New Zealand surgical team,” he said.