The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, DEC. 6, 1906.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1951, 6 December 1906, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, DEC. 6, 1906.

One can hardly blame laymen for tak- ;■! ing the advice ox experts in matters on | which laymen can have no sufficient ■] opportunity for getting information, except through exports, i'or that reals! son it is impossible to blame the mem- | bers of the conference of the Borough Ia and County Councils sitting as a Charitable Aid Board who voted upon the advice of Dr Da Lisle to have the isolation ward placed within the Hospital grounds. Nevertheless they have made a huge mistake which we sin*' ' cerely hope the Hospital Trustees will rectify by refusing point blank to allow the ward to be built within the grounds. There is but one excuse for I placing the isolation ward ia that location, and that one doosn’c exist in this instance: it is that no other suitable site could possibly be obtained. We have never had the honor of Dr DeLisle’s acquaintance so that we are not likely to be accused of permitting personal feeling to influence anything that we have to say in reference to his professional recommendations. We know this gentleman only by his official work as District Health officer, and by that work only do we desire to judge him. Only a week or two ago he gave peremptory orders that a case of scarlet fever should be interned within the precincts of the Hospital itself, and for that reason it cannot be | at all surprising that he should advocate the placing of tho isolation ward within the Hospital grounds; but for other reasons it cannot but surprise anyone who knows anything ol tho subject of bacteriology to finda gentlo- | man with a medical diploma so utterly j careless of tho inevitable risks that J must occur from such a sourco advocating tho placing of the ward in such a position. Much more must it surprise one to know that such a recommendation has come from the gentleman who is charged officially with tho conservation of public health and tho legal status to advise and control tho condi lions of public health, Still it is no use expressing surprise, and in the face of the alarming fact that the advice has been giyen, in our opinion, contrary to the best interests of public health, something more tangible than mere opinion must be advanced in order to successfully oppose the advice of a gentleman who is supposed to know what he is doing. It is our clear duty to do this or bo silent upGn the matter, for a newspaper, if it is capable of fulfilling its highest duty, has on its shoulders as grave a responsibility as any public olliser in moulding pubiie opinion to its legitimate shape and in checking popular errors that may by any remote chance militate against the public weal. That duty we have never yet shirked, and the fact that a profess j sional opinion opposes our convictions on tho present occasion does not confront us with dismay, for the very simple reason that it is but an individual opinion unsupported by reason in the light of surrounding circumstances, as

it is void of any aomblanco of compliance with tlio most modern notions of septic methods of troatmont of discuses and thoir provontion. Lot us clearly state the position. Dr Do Lisle, as wo have previously shown, is not avorse to placing infectious otisos inside the. hospital wards within dangerous proximity to surgical casos, and lie Inis uttered no word of warning to the laymen, whom ho was advising of tho dangers from possible direct or indirect contact that would bo certain to occur except under tho veiy strictest observance of tho very strict rules. When it was moutioaod that in larger contres the isolation wards wore within tho hospital grounds, ho fu.ilod to point out tho uiil'oront conditions under which such an arrangement was possible, and hence left tho impression upon tho minds of tiro mombors who had to decide tho matter that thoro wore few if any risks in placing the ward whore it lian upon that understanding boon decided to put it. Now, oil the other hand, wo admit tho possibility of treating infectious cases within twenty foot of each othor with uo more ribk than if a mile separated them; but to make tho lessor distance at all a safe ono re-

quires safely constructed promises and tho constant supervision and attention of a rosident medical man, and tho employment of noao but efficiently trained nurses who would have to be isolated with tho infectious patients and under no pretext permitted to outer tho general hospital or converse with tho nurses or patients there during or for many day after their term of attendance ; nor would tho resident doctor think of going from tho isolation to the other wards without undergoing fumigation and change of garments Wliera thoro is a sufficiently numerous staff of trained nurses whose complete absence from tho general hospital in batches of two, threo or six at a time would not be an inconvenience or drawback

to the requirements of the gonerai work the experiment might be tried with a certain degree of safety ; but those conditions do not exist here, nor are they likely to exist, on account of tho unavoidable expense which the plan involves, and thore is.no getting away from tho undoubted risks arising from the common use of cooking and

eating utensils, the possible contamination from contact of soiled clothes, and a hundred other things that need not here be enumerated. These are matters about which it was tho duty of the Health Officer to inform the Board to enable them to arrive at a proper docision, and which he failed to do, and which he cannot deny made it highly undesirable if not absolutely dangerous to place the isolation ward where it is now proposed to put it. Suppose, for instance, an untrained probationer, taking her cue from the Health Officer, chooses for a moment to treat infectious cases lightly and walks across the ground to have a moment’s chat with her friend the temporarily isolated nurse, and equators back to dress a wound with a colony of bacteria inker hair or sleeves, eli9 would not feel the burden, but the patient would feel something afterwards, and very probably his or her friends would also be forced to feel the sorrows of: a bereavement. Such things are by no means remote possibilities, and they should have been poiuted out and discouraged by the Health Officer rather than suppressed as they have boen, and tho conditions which make them possible advocated.