CHILD DROWNED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 38, 15 February 1939, Page 8

CHILD DROWNED

FATHER’S ALLEGATION DOCTORS REFUSED TO ANSWER CALL [ Per Press Association.] * WELLINGTON, Feb. 14. The allegation that two doctors had declined to come when he called them was made at an inquest at Lower Hutt to-day by the father of Beverley Irene Allison, aged 2 years 8 months, whose body was found in the Waiwhetu Stream near Rossiter Avenue on Friday afternoon. Evidence was given that the child had wandered from the house of her grandmother .and on a search being made her body was found in the stream. The grandmother tried to resuscitate the child, as also did Dr. R. A. Bakewell, who arrived half an hour after the finding of the body. The coroner, Mr. E. Gilbertson, said the case was one where a knowledge of resuscitation was most important. What the grandmother had done was correct as far as it. went, but he was of opinion that the life of the child could have been saved if someone with a full knowledge of life-saving methods had been present. The father of the child asked the coroner if it were not compulsory for medical men, if they were at their surgeries, to attend cases when called. He had called two doctors who had refused to come, hence the late ari rival of Dr. Bakewell. The coroner said there was no compulsion but he supposed the doctors in question had engagements. The finding was that the child was accidentally drowned on February 10 by falling into the Waivvhetu Stream.