THE GLOBE SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1880. DR. SKAE’S REPORT.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2128, 18 December 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1880. DR. SKAE’S REPORT.

Not only the medical world but the general public have been looking forward with considerable interest for Dr. Skae’s Report to the Government on what is known as the Hospital and Board of Health dispute. The Christchurch press, too, has taken up the subject with more or less warmth, our morning contemporaries both giving their views on the subject. The “ Press ” confines itself to blaming the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board for not taking time to consider the Export of the Commissioner forwarded to it by the Government and for appointing a staff immediately; the “Lyttelton Times,” in addition to the above opinion, launches out into invective against the Staff, the Board, and all connected with the Hospital, and advises the Government to instantly dismiss the Board. Now with regard to the action »f the Board in choosing the Staff at the same sitting at which it received the Report from the Government and, as it were, indecently hurrying matters, when, in reality, there was no possible necessity for its doing so, we can scarcely concur with our contemporaries. In some people’s eyes it may be thought that the Hospital Board has seriously weakened itself and placed itself in a false light by the action it took. The public at large, who are apt to judge, not so much from the innate merits of the case as from those actions of individuals or bodies which may most prominently come to the front, may unadvisedly jump to the conclusion that the Staff had something to conceal and that it was bent, in a pig-headed sort of fashion, on ignoring what the Government had taken so much trouble to procure. Numbers may possibly have blundered into the same conclusion that the “ Lyttelton Times ” has, jumbling the Hospital Board, the Medical Staff, and the House Surgeon into one olla podrida, which is supposed to have been utterly annihilated by Dr. Skao’s report, and which should all at once be sent to the right-about by an indignant Government.

Now, without taking up a brief for the present Staff, wo would wish to lay what appear to us to be the facts of the case plainly before the public. First, with regard to the Hospital Board being attached, body and soul, to the present Staff. The present state of affairs is, without a doubt, entirely due to the cliqueism which at present unfortunately prevails in a considerable portion of the medical profession in Christchurch. It will bo remembered that when what we may call Dr. Turnbull’s Staff threw up the Hospital at a moment’s notice, applications from medical men were invited by the Board. The old Staff sent in an application en hloc. What Hospital Board could possibly entertain such a proposal P We have reasons for believing too that in the present case, the en hloc system would have been adhered to. The Hospital Board would appear therefore nolens volens to be forced into the arms of the present Staff. Wo are merely pointing out the reason why the Board appear to bo so bound up with the present Staff. It is the fault solely of a large section of the medical profession in Christchurch. No Board with an atom of self-respect could entertain an en hloc application. The absurdity of the rabid opinion enunciated by the “ Lyttelton Times ” will be seen at once by any one who carefully considers the report, together with the proceedings of the enquiry in Christchurch. The report itself says this in effect—No report of the admission of several typhoid cases was made to the Board of Health, the cause of the deaths was typhoid, and was entered as something else. The Hospital Board is recommended to instruct the House Surgeon to personally make diagnoses and generally to take greater care with the records. This is the sum total of the Dr. Skao'a report. There is not a word to connect the present Staff with the routine that has obtained for years at the Hospital. Those who infer that they have caused false records to be entered

out of spite to the Board of Health are not backed up in any way whatsoever by the Commissioner. That the present Staff were drawn into seeing the House Surgeon through the enquiry is true enough. Under the circumstances this was unavoidable. This is absolutely proved by what took place at the opening of the inquiry. Dr. Skae asked who was the person accused of dereliction of duty, and Dr. Nedwill replies, “The House Surgeon.” Dr. Skae —“ Then no charges can be made against anybody else ?” But immediately afterwards Dr. Skae said that ho took it that the Staff were responsible for the diagnoses made by the House Surgeon, and Dr. Prins replied that the physicians were prepared to substantiate what the House Surgeon had done. Their feeling of loyalty towards a subordinate officer could not have allowed them to do anything else. Dr. Davies said distinctly that he was not prompted by anyone not to report cases of typhoid. We may also remark that public feeling —outside of interested prints, of course—is strongly of opinion that no possible motive could exist to make the Hospital medici anxious to burke cases of typhoid. As we intend shortly to follow at some length this novel phase in the neverending “ war of the doctors,” we will leave the subject for the present. We shall have a good deal more to say about it—about Dr. Skae’a remarkable report, and in relation to the various springs which wo are fully aware have influenced the whole complexion of the case. Rampant cliqueism—especially if of a strongly developed medical type—invariably martyrises “ the other side ” in the minds of honest men at least.