THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1881. THE HOSPITAL QUESTION.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2140, 4 January 1881, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1881. THE HOSPITAL QUESTION.

Our contemporary, the “Lyttelton Times,” has, with even extra ingenuity, been endeavouring to manufacture a case against the Hospital Board, or has rather been carrying out to greater lengths the pleas it has already urged on the subject. And it has arrived at the conclusion that the only action possible under the circumstances is the dismissal from office of the Board as it stands. This tremendous dictum has, it is needless to say, been based upon arguments entirely erroneous in every way. Our contemporary has always looked at this Hospital question through lenses adjusted solely by the members of the late Staff. Certain members of that body, mophistopheles-liko, stand behind the editorial chair and guide the editorial pen. jphey dose the journal with drastic pills, which drive out of its system all remnants of logic and reason, and render it an easy prey to a defunct Staff whose principal virtue was that of hanging together through thick and thin—a virtue shared by other bodies hardly so respectable.

Now, as the Government has not in any way endorsed the verdict given by Dr. Skae, it is rather amusing to see the theory put up that the Hospital Board should bow to a decision which, on the face of it, is not worth the paper it is written on. It is totally untrue that the Staff welcomed, as the “ Lyttelton Times” says it did. Dr. Skae as the judge of the controversy, because, in point of fact, the Staff was not even notified of his arrival. But granted that the Board welcomed him, and what of that ? The Board was quite ready to welcome any Commissioner that might bo sent down, hut it did not anticipate that the gentleman chosen would have no more idea of conducting the business of an enquiry than a Choctaw Indian. A careful adherence to the laws of evidence is generally considered necessary in such cases. The facts and opinions adduced on each aide should be carefully weighed and balanced, the one against the other, but the Commission was .not expected to

eventuate in Dr. Skae’s merely airing his i individual medical opinion, and virtually only placing it among the mass o£ contradictory evidence. He came down to Christchurch as a judge, and he left the place as a witness. Ho was welcomed on his arrival hy all impartial men, hut all such individuals, on the perusal of his report, saw at once that he had mistaken his functions, and their feelings would natually induce them to pay as little attention as possible to the opinions of a gentleman who had not grasped the elementary moaning of the word Commissioner. Dr. Skae is, wo agree with the “ Lyttelton Times,” not alone, “he is supported by a very considerable number of medical™ men in Christchurch,*’ or rather, wo should say, he has supported them. His limited knowledge of general practice has led him to support them, but that is just what everybody complains of. He came down as a Commissioner, and not as a medical export. Moreover, the statement that he is backed up by a number of our medical men is, of course, at once met by the assertion that ho is opposed by a number of others, which is an equally valid argument. And then our contemporary starts this most extraordinary theery—that as the letter of the Staff endorses the recommendation of Dr. Skae upon other medical questions, the objection that his opinion is of no special value falls to the ground. Why, the “ other medical questions ” are mere questions of routine, and have nothing whatsoever to do with Dr. Skae’s qualification either as a doctor or as a Commissioner. They merely relate to the method of taking, in the future, the diagnoses, &c., of patients on their admission, and have absolutely nothing to do with the main body of the inquiry. Of course, they were endorsed—in point of fact, they wore not only endorsed, but acted upon before Dr. Skae’s report saw the light at all. But that fact does not alter the position of the Board or of the Staff in the slightest. Dr. Skae was not sent down from Wellington to offer mild suggestions on matters of routine, and his success in such an operation does not, in any way, cover his utter failure as a Commissioner appointed to judicially weigh the merits and demerits of the Hospital embroglio. Again, the “ Lyttelton Times ” says:—

The Board relies on the theory that everything that has taken place is a mere doctors’ quarrel. Now, we have shown that this can only mean that the Hospital staff has neglected to do its duty because the Health Officer belonged to a former staff, with which it had been at war.

Not at all. It is just as easy to invert our contemporary’s argument and say the fault lies with the Health Officer, because ho was a member of a former staff. It is again a mere matter of tweedledum and tweedledee, and can he harped on ad infinitum. But what appears to have roused our contemporary more than anything is that Dr. Nedwill has been what it calls “ejected” from the post of surgeon to the Armagh street depot. And in order to point the argument the reader is led to infer that the above appointments, that of Medical Officer to the Selwyn (?) Homo and Medical Officer to the Lyttelton Orphanage are all on the same footing, and that Dr. Nedwill has been turned out of the first because ho is mixed up in the so-called “ doctors’ quarrel.” Now the real facts of the case are these. The two latter appointments are only a year old; the post of surgeon to the Armagh street Depot is two years old, and was made by the Board when the Turnbull Staff was in power. The Board —the same Board that now exists, be it remembered —considered the appointment as being only for one year, but, neglecting to give Dr. Nedwill notice at the end of the first year, he clung to the post, and entered upon his second year of office. The Board were then advised that their power for that year had ceased, and they acquiesced in the inevitable, but they certainly never looked upon tho appointment as a permanent one. With regard to the other two appointments, one was made by the Government and not by the Board at all, and the other was, indeed, made by the Board, but, the question of the limit of its duration was never taken into consideration. It was not like the post made when the Turnbull Staff were to the front—limited to a year.

In conclusion, we may wonder that the “ Lyttelton Times ” is verdant enough to suppose that the medical profession of the colony generally would memorialize the Government to depose the present Hospital Board, or that the Central Board of Health is in any alarm about the reliability of the statistics. Indeed, our contemporary puts forward both suggestions in a very apologetic fashion, as if half ashamed of them itself. The alternative it suggests is for the Government to send the present Hospital Board to the right about. But, unfortunately for our enthusiastic contemporary, the Government are apparently but little struck with Dr. Skao’s report. They have not, as yet, endorsed it, and are not likely to be moved into doing so by such an extraordinary mixture of special pleading and feeble logic, as appeared in the article we have been reviewing.