CANCER HOSPITAL

Evening Star, Issue 20133, 25 March 1929, Page 11

CANCER HOSPITAL

OBJECTION! TO LOCAL SITE S» INSUFFICIENT CLINICAL MATERIAL [.Special to the ‘ Star.'] AUCKLAND. March. 2K In the course of a lengthy editorial on tho cancer hospital the ‘ Herald ’ says: “No doubt the Dunedin deputation was well satisfied with the implied promises of the Jdiuister of Health concerning tho special cancer hospital, but these promises cannot he received with equal satisfaction elsewhere. _ If New/ Zealand is to have one special cancel* hospital, it ought not to he located at Dunedin. Tho staffing and equipment there would in any event have to ho augmented, but'even if this be done the relative inaccessibility of Dunedin will mean a relative poverty of clinical, material. Mr Handley, for reasons that must ho apparent to those acquainted, with his expert statements on the whole subject, had in mind really acentral location. No amount of argument. he it proffered never so eloquently by deputations to Ministers, can move Dunedin nearer to the middle of the dominion. It might transfer the Medical School; but that is another story.

“What matters now is flint Ne\V Zealand, needs urgently a special cancel; hospital, and that, whatever expense has to be incurred, that expense ought not to be grudged in. view of trio gravity of the need. H should' ho located where it can conduct research with, ample clinical material, and provide remedial treatment to the largest possible number of sufferers. To place it in the least populous province of the dominion, and so far away from the hulk of the people, would he an net wholly indefensible, whether the matter he judged, from either the scientific of the humanitarian point of view. “ Apparently Mr Stallworthy is waiting for criticism of the proposal to place it there, for ho says that no opposition has been offered to the suggestion that it he associated with the Otago Medical School. He must have known that once the suggestion was made public it would arouse objection. _ There is incontestable reason for objecting, and for continuing to object until a better location is found.”