TO CARRY DOCTORS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 November 1931, Page 5

TO CARRY DOCTORS

INTER-AUSTRALIAN PASSENGER SHIPS, ACTION WILL FOLLOW INFRINGEMENT. (Australian Press Association.) (Received this day at 10.15 a.m.) SYDNEY, November 19. Nearly a year ago Mr I itzsinunons asked the Premier (Mr Lang) in the Assembly, whether it was a fact that a man who became ill on the mail steamer, en route from New Zealand t 0 Sydney, died because there was no surgeon aboard to perform an immediate operation. The Premier replied that as the ship was registered in New Zealand, the matter of making it compulsory for a mail steamer to carry doctors rested with the Commonwealth authorities to whom he would make the necessary representations. A letter has now been received from the Prime Minister’s Department, stating that action had been taken by the Minister for Transport with a view to instituting proceedings against the Union Steamship Company, to test the application of Section 133, of the Navigation Act, to New Zealand registered ships trading between the Dominion and Australia. Because of the action referred to, the Union Steamship Company, under protest, has placed a medical officer on the Maunganui. In the event, of a pas' songer ship leaving for New Zealand without a doctor, legal proceedings, it is stated, will be taken immediately.