New Zealand Truth THE NATIONAL PAPER THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1928. Wards of Death

NZ Truth, Issue 1192, 4 October 1928, Page 6

New Zealand Truth THE NATIONAL PAPER THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1928. Wards of Death

THERE can be no question as to the signal failure of the Health Department m its impotence to check the disgraceful sequence of tragedy which has , arisen from the very foundations of our public hospitals. Within the past two years, it has been our distressing duty to record the untimely deaths of many public hospital patients, their demise brought about by crass stupidity and the bungling hands of indifferent, inept practitioners, whether of the nursing or medical professions. The feeling of uneasiness is not by any means localized to one particular city or town, and for months past there has been an evident wide-spread circle of disquietude m the minds of many citizens, who of necessity have been obliged to suffer the questionable benefits of a public hospital. Too often now have the.processes of these institutions been responsible for many sad consequences, and it is patent that the authority for investigating the hopeless ineptitude of certain, hospital boards should be removed from .the present Minister of Health and vested m a special commission. It is futile to suggest that aggrieved persons should seek to record their plaints m the minute books of hospital boards, as it has been the bitter experience of many complainants that the true aspect of the situation is enveloped m an entanglement of abstruse medical explanation which, com-, bined with the incoherent state- ' ments of many hospital board members, completely bewilders everybody, is devoid of satisfaction and stains the whole system, with merited suspicion. . . "When the commission is set up, as undoubtedly it should be, its members should also investigate deeply the question of what attributes shall be deemed to qualify intending candidates for membership of hospital boards. At present, it would appear that the, most prominent faculty one can observe m the personnel of such bodies is that of having over-much to say, at much' expense of time and energy, and with but little good effect, unless the alternative desideratum be that of screening the sins of its staff. In such an important matter of governance, it appears- reasonable to demand that the personal attributes of, intending candidates should be fully investigated — too many of them are appointed by. virtue of some ' silken . gift of speech or a pleasant platform manner. i And while it is functioning, the same commission should bring into focus the conditions under which nurses are called upon to work, about which the nation has heard much explanation that was neither explanatory nor truthful.