The Globe. FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 810, 26 January 1877, Page 2

The Globe. FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 1877.

A telegram from Dunedin, which we publish elsewhere, respecting the Hospital there, reveals a state of things it is hardly possible to conceive could exist. Not alone is the institution utterly and completely unprovided with the common necessaries to enable the work to bo carried on efficiently, but it contains within itself the very elements ol disease and death. We find this existing in a place where by reason of persons being sick and enfeebled they are more susceptible to infection. We are quite at a loss to understand how it is that such a state

of things should have been allowed to go on under the very noses of the medical staff. One would have thought that they would at once detected what appears to have been found out immediately on inspection by a committee mainly composed of laymen. Thiat it had been going on some time is evident, for we are told, in the telegram, that “ beneath the flooring of one ward and a considerable portion of the building, mud and offensive matter to the depth of two or three feet had accumulated.” Can anything more disgraceful or exhibiting such criminal neglect be imagined? Here we have the unfortunate patients confined, during the hot months of summer, in a building under which is a reeking mass of filth, sending forth its deadly miasma. But, as if this was not enough, we find it stated, further on, that “ The offensive odour of the closets had penetrated a considerable distance.” The arrangements, too, are of the most defective kind. The coramitttee, according to the telegram, on their visit, “ found that none of the wards were provided with lavatories. baths, or closets. There was only one lavatory and one bath on the premises, the latter being situated near the kitchen.” It will therefore be seen that the alteration of management took place not one moment too soon. Indeed it is matter for wonder that any patient came out alive from such a pest-house as the Dunedin Hospital must have been. He thought that the palm for mismanagement of public institutions was fairly to be awarded to Auckland ; but from these revelations it appears that Dunedin is entitled to come very close up. Telegrams at the time of the Abolition Act coming into force came from Invercargill, stating that jubilee had been held. This was turned into ridicule by some, but we fancy that the unfortunate patients in the Dunedin Hospital, if they were aware of the change for the better likely to ensue to them, would have held high festival, and with good cause. The concluding paragraph of the telegram is as follows :—“ The committee have determined te take the necessary steps for at once effecting the requisite alterations.” AVe should think so. The only wonder ia that there are any patients left alive at all, and it speaks volumes for the hardiness of our friends from the Northern side of the Tweed that it ia so. AVe trust that a searching investigation will be made, and that those who are responsible for this wretched state of things will be held up to public reprobation.