The Sun. FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1928 SCANDAL AT THE HOSPITAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 411, 20 July 1928, Page 8

The Sun. FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1928 SCANDAL AT THE HOSPITAL

|F the Minister of Health and also the Director-General of Hospi- * tals came to Auckland and contracted scarlet fever or diphtheria or even eliickenpox what would doctors or the Hospital Board do with the stricken gentlemen? They could not be accommodated in the public hospital, for there is no room to spare there, even for distinguished patients. Though they are autocratically supreme in responsibility for the adequate, treatment of infectious disease, the fevered administrators, helpless and sick, would have to go either into a private home or a publichouse for a cure. Unfortunately, that sort of fever does not attack all the people who most need a physical lesson on the necessity for effective care of sufferers.

Conditions in Auckland for the isolation of infectious diseases are worse than those in Uganda. Mission hospitals at Entebbe and Kampala, in Central Africa, do what they can to cope with pestilential diseases, including the deadly sleeping sickness, and do excellent work without any pretence. Here, there is a great hospital settlement—the greatest in the Dominion —with almost a village of buildings, but the position in respect of adequate accommodation for infectious disease cases represents an unparalleled scandal. There is no special provision for such patients at all. Thus, the hospital authorities, with full knowledge of the risks involved, are compelled to trifle with the safety of patients and expose them to the risk of cross-infection. The menace is not prospective. It has become a malignant actuality, which fact is a disgrace to everybody concerned with public hospital administration. This is not an exaggerated story, vividly coloured in order to impress obdurate, callous departmental authorities. It is a plain recital of stark truth as revealed by the hospital administrators with commendable restraint.

It should be noted by parents whose children may be dragged into danger at the public hospital that Mr. William Wallace, chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board, has described the position as a desperate one. It is an accurate description, calling for immediate attention to a chronic scandal, but, in agreeing with him, it is fair to point out that when The Sun said the position was a scandal as far back as May of last year, neither Mr. Wallace nor the members of the board agreed with The Sun. Such general accommodation as exists at the public hospital for the treatment of infectious diseases is limited to 85 beds. There are 122 cases under treatment. Space is so cramped that beds are almost touching one another. Overcrowding in wards and corridors is grotesque, dangerous, shameful. The arrangements for isolation, which the law and medical wisdom declare essential, are worse than farcical. These are tragic. There is no effective isolation at all. It is admitted, with blushing regret, that there have been several cases of cross-infection. Children suffering from scarlet fever, who have been surrendered into the care of the hospital experts and authorities, have contracted diphtheria, and diphtheria patients have had scarlet fever thrust upon them. And all this is permitted in a modern 1 ospital, “the most splendid institution of its kind,” and so on and so on in vain boasting. It is a wicked business. The hospital administrators are now driven into asking the Health Department to sanction the folly of having infectious diseases patients kept at their homes. Stupidity, even in desperation, could go uo farther. It is the duty of the board to secure temporary accommodation without delay, while the Minister of Health contemplates the necessity of heroically breaking down the autocratic obstinacy of the Director-General of Hospitals, who persists in preventing a start on the construction of the projected hospital for infectious diseases.