A REVOLTING INCIDENT.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3754, 8 January 1881, Page 1

A REVOLTING INCIDENT.

Melbourne is 6xcited over a revelation of the way in which things are managed in the Hospital there. A female patient was admitted on i'Jov. 12, suffering from severe accidental burtis, and was presumably duly attended by the surgical staff. Five days after this (her injuries never having been lookeJ at in the meantime) she complained in agonising accents, that something was crawling under .the baud ages. Dr Newman in response to the appeal of the unfortunate creature, said he could not attend to her then, but would do so next day. Her cries of distress at this scorned to have irritated Ihe doctor, who at once ordered her into the refractory ward, and left. The matron, knowing there were and refractory patients there, did not obey the order, and, like a feminine " good Samari*

tan " as she was. on her own responsibility ! -unbound and dressed the patient's wounds. In these, and eating into the live flesh, she found maggots, some of them au inch in lenghtl The matter was reported to the Managing Committee, whosefirst impulse was to mete out such '.punishment as lay iirits pow.er against the ■ -medical man. But other counsels prevailed. -Some members, slaves to routine -and red tape, were struck by the enormity of the offence committed by the matron, who, in acting as she had done, . bad violated the rules of the institution, v which required that she should have reported to somebody' else, &c. So, says the Southland-; News' correspondent, the case-is to be inquired into, and, if ihat clique can have its own way, the matrob willy be summarily 'dismissed, and the doctor whitewashed. ;