BAD BEHAVIOUR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 February 1943, Page 3

BAD BEHAVIOUR

OF GIRL PATIENTS HOSPITAL AUTHORITIES DEFIED. APPEALS TO MINISTERS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, February 22. The Auckland Hospital Board decided tonight to inform the Ministers of Health and Justice of its opinion that patients suffering from venereal diseases should be under strict control other than hospital board control, and to ask them to give urgent consideration to the provision of suitable accommodation for this class of patient. The chairman, Mr Allan Moody, introduced the matter when he informed the board that female patients now in hospital were so uncontrollable that the medical superintendent, Dr Gilberd, had said he and the nursing staff could not carry on under present conditions. Mr Moody explained that by law the board was compelled to receive venereal disease patients sent to it and to hold them till they were cured. Girls were being a continuous nuisance to the nursing staff. They would not obey instructions and they had defied Dr Gilberd. The ward in which they were the patients overlooked the Domain, and their behaviour was a public disgrace. The behaviour of some of them was scandalous in the extreme and for that reason the sooner they were specially provided for,the better. There could be no doubt they were sick and were in need of attention, but there must be some better means of attending to them and controlling them than throwing them on to unfortunate hospital boards. They needed a type of control which could be given by a prison matron or police matron. It was resolved that the Ministers of Health and Justice be told that, while the board had every desire to help patients and assist their departments, such patients should be under strict control other than hospital board control. It added that the present method was not fair to the nursing staff and asked for urgent consideration with a view to providing suitable accommodation.