THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1880. THE HOSPITAL BOARD IN EARNEST.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2133, 24 December 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1880. THE HOSPITAL BOARD IN EARNEST.

WE must congratulate the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board upon the firm stand they took on Wednesday. The Board met for the especial purpose of considering certain matters connected with the appointment of the now Hospital Staff; a burning question so far as certain members of the Christchurch medical profession are concerned, and one of deep interest to the welfare of the community at large. As we often said before, the citizens are heartily sick and tired of these interminable “ doctors’ quarrels,*’ the origin of which quarrels I began in years gone by, and the finality of which appears very remote indeed, so far at least as these gentlemen’s idiosyncrasies are concerned. The Hospital Board, however, have had enough wisdom this time to stamp their foot firmly down. The meeting in question was called to consider the report of the Royal Commissioner, Dr. Skae, re the charges brought against the Hospital Staff by the Board of Health. The utmost unanimity prevailed among the members of the Board—with the exception of one—namely, Dr. Turnbull. The Board, naturally enough, declined to (constitute themselves an authority in matters purely technical, in fact, to hold the balance between professional men, each of whom, by training, experience, or otherwise, might bo fairly said to bo equal to his neighbors. As Messrs Hawkes and Thomson properly remarked, the question at issue— i.e , whether certain Hospital patients suffered from typoid fever or gastroenteritis, or any such professional ‘ what ye may call ’em,’ ” was no point for laymen to decide. Surely if questions of this kind are to be solved by Hospital Boards or “ Royal Commissioners,” where will the whole thing end? To what complicated issues will Hospital Staff management be submitted? Again wo say it, it is merely tweedledum and tweedledeo. The Board were wise in not kicking over the traces of their jurisdiction. Dr. Skae, it is true, gave it as his verdict that the diagnoses of the Staff physicians were, in his opinion, or as weighed in the scales of his meagre experience, tending to show that error there was. The public, not slow or stupidly iaclined to digest what comes before them, long made up their minds that a good deal indeed might be adduced on either side. The evidence published, day by day, and produced before the Commissioner, was easily enough understood. It did not take an Esculapius to grasp its common-place minutiae. As the chairman of the Hospital Board happily and tersely put it, “ the whole affair was but a dispute between the doctors, and the sooner this was admitted the better.” This sentiment was endorsed by Mr. Hawkes and by the broad smiles which at once diffused themselves over the countenances of the other members Dr. Turnbull, of course, always excepted. Even Mr. Montgomery, good natnred as he is, and keenly alive as to the direction from which the popular wind blows, sided with the majority. The bitterest blow which the Turnbull clique have received for many a long year past was from Mr. Montgomery when he proposed the resolution of the day-—the toast of the evening in fact—one which must have annihilated for the nonce all hopes in the bosom of the Turnbull and Co. faction. In effect, this resolution, which was carried without dissent—if we except Dr. Turnbull’s glaring and fierce dumb expletives—was that Dr. Skae’a report should be confined to the waste-paper basket and buried, alive as it was. Government have quietly snubbed Dr. Skae’s report by not endorsing it in any way or shape, and this was quite enough to give the astute member for Akaroa a cue as to how th# popular breezes blew. Public feeling, however, it is notorious, runs very strongly just now in the city, that the members of the present Staff, Messrs. Prins, Townend, Wilkins, &c., are being made targets of by an antagonistic medical clique who have their own small fish to fry. People are not fools after all, and they see at times through a brick wall, let it be ever so skilfully constructed by medical jealousies.

Now we would have a few words to say in regard to the constitution of the Hospital Board. It seems to ns, and has been notoriously remarked by very many people for some time past, that the fact of Dr. Turnbull remaining on its list is grossly indecent. Let us look back for one instant. In a weak moment a certain Hospital Board of the past, for wellmeant motives, thought it well to swell its ranks by the addition of the Chairman of the Hospital Staff “ for the time being,” or, in other words, ex officio. Dr. Turnbull, in those happy-go-lucky days of yore, happened to be the Staff Chairman of the period, a very eventful one indeed. He joined the Board accordingly. Time wore on, and the Hospital staff of which he was temporary Chairman, was wiped out of existence; they deserted their post, in real truth. But would it be believed, notwithstanding his rejection from the position on the Hospital Staff, Dr. Turnbull (a blush on professional etiquette !) thought nothing of remaining on the ' Board, notwithstanding the many hints he received from both friends and fellow members. Of course there was a purpose to serve; there were keen objectsin view. Were not the interests of the medical faction he represented to be attended to, coute que coute, etiquette or no etiquette, honor or no honor: Thus we find Dr. Turnbull still taking bis seat on the Hospital Board; a seat which he has no possible right to occupy; a seat that, under the circumstances, a man less gifted with epidermic thickness would not think of retaining for a day ! Then it came to pass that, meeting after meeting of the Hospital Board, Dr. Turnbull exhibited the ead spectacle of one actually sitting as a tribunal on his own case ! How else can it be characterised ? Let ns look at the records of the past. Had not Dr. Turnbull,while sitting on that Board, invariably trumpetted forth, fought tooth and nail for, and viciously defended the so-called rights of that section of the medical profession in Christchurch which has, by its cliqneism, caused so much mischief in the community ? At the present moment, he stands alone and solitary in the Board as the champion—not of public rights and public feeling—but of the medical clique which ho leads. Is it right that such a state of things should bo permitted to exist ? Last Wednesday, the Board were unanimous that, laymen as they were, no technical or professional issues should bo placed before them for discussion, Alone against this common-sense

ruling, Dr. Turnbull stood. The chairman, Mr. Thomson, had repeatedly to call him to order, as he, the learned pundit in. medical “ Hospital ” lore was diving deep into the recesses of medical jurisprudence, and playing football with professional “ isms ” of a most outre character. Again wo repeat it, the Hospital Board deserves all commendation for having set their faces “ square ” against the dulcet tones of him whom Mr. Montgomery happily termed “ the man in the street,” whoso tones, first heard in Cathedral square under peculiarly twisted influences of whi«h Dr. Turnbull swears he absolutely knows nothing, managed to bo re-echoed elsewhere. Wo are almost dona with this unpalatable Hospital embroglio. Public opinion has long been compelled to designate it as another of these paltry “doctors’ quarrels,” and it is certainly not out of reckoning. The public who pays for the maintainance of its Institutions, wants them to be properly looked after, and the requirements of the community suitably attended to. These “ medical ” jealousies stink in the nostrils of the | people, and the action of the Hospital Board in taking the broad view they have done of the new appointments on the Hospital, meet, we feel assured, with the sympathy of all honest and disinterested people. The name of Dr. Prins as chairman of the new staff, and those of Dr. Townend and of his fellow coadjutors on the staff, are security enough that public interests, so far as Hospital executive management is concerned, will bo thoroughly attended to. These gentlemen, at all events, have never tried to raise much dust—whether it be for the optics of their professional fellows or others —and public opinion, Dr. Skae’s crude report notwithstanding, is pretty shrewd at guessing who is who, and for what {[hidden motives, so and so does this or that. Verbum sap.