SURGERY ABOARD SHIPS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 132, 25 August 1927, Page 18

SURGERY ABOARD SHIPS

QUESTION IN PARLIAMENT REGULATIONS EXPLAINED (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. ‘‘Deplorable, inefficient and dangerous,” were .the words used by Mr. P. Fraser, member for Wellington Central, regarding the state of affairs which was revealed by the report of an operation, with a pair of toilet scissors, performed on a seaman on the steamer Port Auckland, off Cape Horn recently by a Dunedin medical student. Mr. Fraser asked the Minister of Marine, the Hon. G. J. Anderson, whether he would take steps to render a recurrence of such an experience impossible, and to ensure that in addition to a properly qualified doctor, each ship shall carry complete surgical and medical equipment. “The vessel in question comes under the Imperial Merchant Shipping Act, and as she carries less than 100 persons she is not required by that Act to carry a properly qualified medical practitioner,” replied the Minister today. “She is, however, required to carry a most fully equipped medicine chest with the necessary medicines, medical stores and comforts, and instruments, and the standard publication containing directions for their use.

With respect to New Zealand ships, the provisions of the Shipping and Seamen Act governing the carrying of a doctor are the same as those contained in the Imperial Act, and the question of extending those provisions to cover intercolonial ships is at present under consideration.”