ALLEGED INHUMAN TREATMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3159, 10 April 1909, Page 5

ALLEGED INHUMAN TREATMENT.

OF A SUFFERING WOMAN. | AN ENQUIRY PROCEEDING. j What can only be described as in- j human conduct on the part of those j in charge of the Hawera Public Hospital is reported by the Opunake "Times." It is stated that on Monday of last week (the day on which a storm was raging) a lady named Mrs Brosnan was ordered by Dr. Barron to the Hospital, che doctor sending a letter to the Hospital explaining the nature ot the case. An ambulance was procured, and the unfortunate patient sent on the road to Hawera. At Manaia Dr. Noonan was consulted, and he advissd getting to the Hospital with all haste. About 1 a.m. on Tuesday Mrs Brosnan was admitted to the Hospital, but after being there for less than an hour instructions were given for her removal, it being stated that such cases were not taken there. After having been driven 40 miles on the road through a storm, and admitted into the Hospital, she was practically turned out in the middle of the nighc. She was taken to a private hospital, where she gave birth to a dead child. As the necessary appliances for the full treatment of the ease were not at this hospital, the patient was | again removed, through the bitter cold, to a private home, where she died at 7 o ciock on Tuesay morning, 18 hours after she had been admitted to the Public Hospital, and rejected. I The Opunake "Times" characterise this treatment as such that a callous man would not give to a dumb aniI mal.

A meeting of the Hawera and District Hospital and Charitable Aid Board took place on Monday, the business being to enquire into the circumstances of the case of the late Mrs Brosnan, in connection with whose death certain allegatioas were made. After Drs M. Mac Gibbon, Noonan, Campbell and Nurse Simpson, had given evidence dealing with the treatment of Mrs Brosnan after her arrival in Hawera, and as to the reasons that necessitated her removal from the Hospital, it was decided to adjourn the enquiry until Tuesday, April 13th, when the evidence of Dr Barron and Mrs A. Wallace (the nurse) of Opunake will be talaten.