LOCAL BODY ELECTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26622, 19 November 1947, Page 9

LOCAL BODY ELECTIONS

Sir,—ln your issue this morning you quote Mrs Ross as saying, in reference to my attendance at Hospital Board meetings: "I see that Dr McMillan headed the list with 100 per cent. I do not intend to question the fact that he attended the meetings, but I would point out that he did not say how long he stayed at them. This is an amazing statement to come from Mrs Ross and I am at a complete loss to know how or why she put such an innuendo into her remarks because as she knows, and as your reporters can verify, in the whole three years I have never left the chair at a Hospital Board meeting until the conclusion of the meeting with the exception of one meeting. At that one meeting, for which I vacated the chair for about five minutes, my absence was due to an urgent person-to-person telephone call from the Minister of Health on Hospital Board business. —I am, etc., D. G. McMillan. Dunedin November 18.

Sir, —I read in the press Cr McMillan’s comments regarding my “ holiday ” from council meetings I was granted leave of absence by members of the City Council, including Cr MeMillan, for the specific purpqse mentioned below. The •* holiday '* referred to, as this gentleman knows only too well, was a trip to India and Ceylon made at the request of the late Mr Sullivan, then Minister of Indusr tries and Commerce, to purchase urgently required tea stocks for New Zealand. Cabinet, through Mr Nordmeyer, on my return expressed its gratitude for the complete success of my mission, as the prospect of New Zealand securing adequate supplies of tea when I left New Zealand in February, were rather grim. Only my own actual travelling expenses were paid for by the Government.—l am. etc.. L. M. Wright.

Sir,—l wish to “ tidy up ” Dr McMillan’s remarks concerning Dr Noel North. His speech at Broad Bay on Monday night is very misleading to the general' public. Dr Noel North has had special postgraduate training in obstetrics and gynaecology, both in England and at the Dunedin Public and Queen Mary Hospitals, and what is more, he was aplointed by the University.. Coqncil ,as utor In obstetrics just after his return from the war. I understand that- the reason why he has not yet been able to sit for his M.R.C.O.G.—a higher qualification in obstetrics and gynaecology—is because -he elected to go to the war, where he served his King and country with distinction for five years. Through serious illness in his family he was unable to ’proceed to Melbourne in January of this vear to sit the examination. Dr Noel North was quite correct in his remarks concerning the lack of post-graduate training of the medical Labour aspirants for -Hospital Board honours. As regards Dr North’s remarks concerning Queen Mary Hospital, he again is correct. The hospital is dreadfully under-staffed, and cur sisters and nurses there are working as slaves—no time to think arid no time for rest or sufficient holidays. We all know there is a lamentable shortage of midwives, but I fee] that, if the board had ..expended the same energy and expense in appealing to the public for help, as they have done in appealing for votes, then the public would have responded and our nursing staff would have been given relief and help.—l.am. etc.,

Gerald P. Fitzgerald Dunedin. November 18.