HOSPITAL ENQUIRY

Hokitika Guardian, 31 July 1928, Page 3

HOSPITAL ENQUIRY

(By Telegraph—Per Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, July 31

The North Canterbury Hospital Board inquiry into the deatli of Nurse Helen Jones was continued tin's morning.

-Mrs McCombs read a letter from an ex-nurse, which had just been given her. Before finishing it, however, Mrs McCombs asked to withdraw it, as she found now it was marked confidential.

The Chairman asked the press not to publish the letter. Addressing the Board on behalf of Miss Muir, Mr Hunter said that it was not true that Nurse Jones liked nursing. She told Sister Houston that she disliked surgical training and dreaded the operating theatre work. The parents did not know their daughter’s mind in that respect. There was nothing hut the most considerate treatment by M iss Muir, and the nurse’s examinations by the hospital doctors were not perfunctory. They were careful and exact. If on June 4th, the examination by the Medical Superintendent and his assistant disclosed nothing, how could Miss Muir be expected to know that Nui-se Jones was in for a serious illness. Miss Muir displayed the proper state of mind for a matron of a hospital. She pointed out to Nurse Jones that Nurse Jones need not continue training if she did not wish to do so. What on earth could he made out of Miss Muir’s remark about Nurse Jones getting a spanking, except that it as an innocent, jocular and kindly way of expressing Miss Muir’s point ol view in reference to Nurse Jones going home, instead of returning to the hospital. Airs McCombs said tho Board had had the facts before it in evidence, and the evidence had been absolutely unshaken by cross-examination. Tt was now abundantly plain that Nurse Jones was seriously ill when on more than one occasion, instead of being sent lor medical examination, she was told to sit in tho sun. Tho relatives brought the girl to tho hospital on June 27th. to he medically examined. There was no examination. The girl was scolded and advised to send in her resignation. although the nurse was ill right hack in May, and had reported sick, and asked for sick leave, which was refused, and two days later had fainted. The nurse was never medically examined except at the urgent request of her parents. Some of the nurses enllcd a,s witnesses had been ill more than once. “I submit that there must lie something radically wrong when sixty out of two hundred nurses report sick, some of them two or three times in nine months.” INQUIRY FINDING. CHRISTCHURCH, July 3E At the conclusion of the hospital enquiry, the Board with two dissentients, carried a motion expressing the opinion that everything possible was done for Nurse Jones by the medical officers and the matron. Tho Board also expressed the opinion that sympathetic treatment is given to any of the nurses who report sick.