HOSPITAL INQUIRY
A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
.Rccontly the Wellington Hospital and Charitable Aid Board complained to tho Minister for Public Health (tho Hon. (J; W. Russell) that the Assist-ant-Inspector (Miss Maclean) had coilducted an inquiry at Wellington Hospital, regarding tho duties of nursesi and had examined nurses without either t'ho; Acting Medical Superintendent 'or the Matron being given an oppjrtuuitiof -being present, Tho Minister, in reply, sai<J that the complaint was "mani-festly-an error as regards the Matron," and that there was an obvious reason (the delicate nature of the inquiry) for the Medical Superintendent not being invited to be present. The Minisier quoted Section 74 of t'he Hospital jjid Charitable Institutions Act, .11)03, as authority for tho inquiry. At yesterday's meoting of the. bcaid Mr. F. T. Moore asked who made the "error" of informing the board that tilt inspection was-made without nctice to the Matron. r
The chairman said he did not think there had been.any error.' The inqut.-y had been held'-in the Matron's room, but. the Matron was not present. The Rev. H. Van Staveron objected to the Star Chamber, methods that had been-adopted. Section 74 of tho Act, he said', referif d ,to an inspection, not d,n inquiry. < . ' .
Mr. C, M. (Luke considered that the serious aspect of'the case, was that the Government had taken notice of outside correspondence without" asking the board for some particulars, and that the Government hau gone further and had held an inquiry without asking the responsible officers to be present. He moved that a reply be sent to the Minister to the effect that tho board- interpreted, the Section of tho Act in a very different manner from what'the Minister did, and . that the word inspection in the clause did not mean inquiry.
Mr. F.. Castle seconded: tho motion, and expressed the opinion • that $10 board should,opposo any system of holding inquiries unless tho responsible ■ officers were invited to be present. Mr. F. T. Mooro pointed! out that the inquiry was of a very dejicato nature, and he, could quite understand the lady inspector not wanting the Medical Superintendent to bo present. He rather, thought that the Medical Superintendent would not liimsolf care to .he present. It seemed to Mr. Moore fhat the inquiry was a matter for the lady .inspector and the nurses only. Mr. Luke's motion was carried on tho voices, and the board later received and adopted the report of the inquiry, details of which are given elsewhere.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19160324.2.69
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2728, 24 March 1916, Page 7
Word count
Tapeke kupu
410HOSPITAL INQUIRY Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2728, 24 March 1916, Page 7
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.