A PATIENT SHUT OUT OF HOSPITAL

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3128, 5 July 1917, Page 6

A PATIENT SHUT OUT OF HOSPITAL

THE M'GILL CASE i"». A statement was. made yesterday by the Hon. G: AV. Kussell, Minister of Public Health, regarding the case of the man James M'Gill. The Minister said that Hie attention had been drawn to a report published in the Press regarding the death of James Jl'Gill, in -which Dr. Barclay, Medical Superintendent, Wellington Hospital, was' reported to havo . said that the deceased man should have teen sent to the Porirua Mental Hospital much, more promptly, and that thero was need for less cumbersome arrangements for the speedy removal of patients to that institution. ■ The Minister said.he desired to point out, in the first place, that M'Gill was not a niental patient, but was suffering from cerebro-spinal meningitis. Had he been a mental ense, Section. 9 of" the Mental Defectives ,'Act made provision for an urgent case to be sent to Porirua without the intervention of either the police or a Stipendiary Magistrate. f The surprise was that a man so ill as ii Gill apparently was should not (whatever his . disease) have been received into the Pubjlie Hospital at once. One could not blame the doctors for not diagnosin? eerebro-sphial meningitis, because one did not know what condition tho patient was in when seen by them—the definite symptoms might have developed later; but it was clear that the patient was sufficiently ill for a housemaid to suggest calling a doctor, and for a police officer interviewed to say, "A layman could see that M'Gill, when he was at the Police Station, was in a very serious condition, and it was not desirable that he should die here." A man as ill as tins should hardly have been turned- away from the General Hospital. If a mistake had been made in takinff him there, wus there any reason to increase the error by sending him further until something definite should turn up? Had the doctor held the patient at the Hospital, and on further examination seen no reason to alter his diagnosis of insanity, the ambulance could have been on its way to Porirua in about a quarter of- an hour. All that, was necessary, if the doctor knew the procedure, was to give an urgency certificate, and get the fiick man's companion to sign an urgency application to Dr. Hassell. Dr. Barclay's remarks about less cumbersome arrangements for the speedy removal of patients to Porirna was not the moral of this unfortunate case. The mnn died about seven and ahnlf hours after haviiij; been received, into the institution at Porirua.