TROUBLESOME PATIENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 294, 19 December 1901, Page 2

TROUBLESOME PATIENT.

SCARLET FEVEI! AND LUNACY

WOES OF THE HEALTH AUTHORITIES.

(Special to Times.) Wellington, last night. Something in the nature of a public scandal arising out of a queer succession of events has been avoided by the prompt action of the Public Health Authorities here. A ease of scarlet fever was reported from an up country town, and the patient, a woman, also developed symptoms of lunacy. The railway authorities, acting no doubt in the interests of public health, reiused to bring the patient to Wellington by ordinary means of travel, but eventually she an I her attendants were brought ■lown in a covered railway truck attached to a goods train. It then became necessary that the party should be taken to the public station in order that the woman might bo medically examined as to her mental condition, and two doctors having certified that site was insane, and likewise suffering from scarlet fever, an order was granted for her removal to the asylum. Rut there another difficulty presented itself. The asylum has no accommodation lor the treatment of infectious cases, and the medical officer refused point blank to receive this one ; so the Health Department, in fulfilment of its part of the contract, went a-hunting, and eventually persuaded tho hospital authorities to receive the woman. Consent to waive the execution of tho order for her committal to the asylum had to bo obtained before the police would let her go, and then, the woman safe in the hospital, happily still alive, it became a question of what to do with the “ contacts.” In the end this trouble was also got over by the hospital taking them in for a night, fumigating them thoroughly, and then giving them their liberty. All tiffs emphasises the need for isolation wards in connection with our asylum, and better provision on the railways for the removal of infectious cases from one point to another.