THE TIMARU HOSPITAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2003, 4 February 1890, Page 2

THE TIMARU HOSPITAL.

T® THE EDITOR.

Sir, —Some of your readers may think ' that this subject has been sufficiently well ventilated now, but all that has been said or written is still fruitless, Mr Barker being apparently the only member of the hospital

board who is capable of forming a public-spirited opinion of what are the functions of that body, and I don’t think the matter should be allowed to rest until the other members are

brought to .a better frame of mind, or induced to make room for better men. The medical gentlemen at the meeting displayed great and unnecessary jealousy of the honor of their profession being impugned, I say unnecessary because every intelligent thinking

person—every one whose good opinion is worth having—knows that as practised by men naturally adapted far the profession the medical profession is the moat honorable, the noblest of human professions. But, unfortunately for humanity, in our age it is also a good trade as well as a noble profession, and has therefore attracted to its ranks many who have not the shadow of a claim to natural adaptability—a very common sert of men who have no higher ambition than to get rich. As Mr Barker suggested, it is unlikely that such men will publish anything that will cause them to sacrifice a fee, ~ nor have the public a right to claim from private persons the sacrifice of the emoluments of their profession. If protection of the public from every form of danger is not a duty of the State I would like to know what are the advantages of national life, or what nations exist for. An hospital supported by public money is a public institution that every person in the community has a right to demand access t© when necessary. The rules and [by-laws that makes access to the Timaru hospital so difficult are only worthy of men capable of talking each puerile nonsense as the hospital board showed themselves capable of at their last meeting. The substance of the resolution they passed is to say—“ Know all you poor women in South Canterbury who may be afflicted with puerperal septicaemia that you must die like dogs without medical aid. The attendance of a medical tradesman only tends to disseminate the disease, and send numbers to an untimely grave.” -The doctors~who-wilLattend such cases at the expense of sacrificing the practice of his profession is a type of a man that does not count more than one in ten thousand in any profession, or position in this self-seeking era. Medical nen who help to pass such a resolution may prate about the of their profession, but their and pretended zeal for the greatest number does not conceal their striking resemblance to the person who passed by on the other side of the way. The best that such men could do to tain the honor of the profession would be to find some other occupation more suitable to their type of moral development. It is not the profession that honors or dishonors the man. It is the man that honors or dishonors his profession.-—! am, etc., Anti-Humbug.