ADVANTAGES AND DIFFICULTIES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 725, 5 June 1953, Page 7

ADVANTAGES AND DIFFICULTIES

[N New Zealand most children in general hospitals are child patients of any category put in one ward, partitioned to varying degrees, with perhaps also single rooms attached. This is very different from Great Ormond Street, which is a large hospital run for children. The fewer wards there are the more work will be going on in any one ward. due to constant admissions and treatment. This does not necessarily rule out daily visiting, but it cannot be put aside as mere obstruction if a hospital staff considers it a real difficulty. Professor Moncrieff, Nuffield Professor of Child Health in the University of London, who started the Great Ormond Street scheme, said (British Medica] Journal, January 5, 1952), that the plan of daily visiting was more particularly for those of toddler age, that visiting only on visiting days was "all right" for older children-say over 5-6 years of age, and that it would be unfair to say there were no difficulties, such as the distance to be travelled daily by mothers-incidentally more obvious in New Zealand than in London with its excellent tube. system. There is also the. difficulty of the mother’s being away from home at the evening meal time. Moncrieff got over these difficulties by having substitute visitors. Children whose parents cannot visit them feel very left out. Substitutes can be used either in the home or in

the hospital, though it is difficult to see the purpose of the substitute in hospital. My personal view is that psychological trauma can occur to children who become hospitalised, and that hospitalisation should therefore be restricted to an absolute minimum, particularly for children under five years of age-a view with which hospital administrators and clinicians are not likely to disagree. An excellent article on emotional trauma in children due to hospital treatment in the Journa] of the American Medical Association of August 23, 1952, makes a point that is particularly worthy of note: that the child with a trust in his parents will trust the hospital staff and therefore is likely to suffer less damage. Even the casual observer must see that some children can go away from home and, return happily without subsequent emotional damage because they have stable parents; they have therefore learned to trust adults and are themselves developing stable personalities. The child who frets immediately he’ is away from his parents should give the parents cause to review their own child nurture. It is always worthwhile drawing modern trends to the attention of professional men and women, but in this case as in so many medical matters the individual physician or surgeon must decide the individual child’s needs on its merits, and the overall policy of the hospital should be left in the hands of the staff led by the medical super-intendent-who is, of course, responsible to the hospital board.

-Dr.

G. L.

McLeod

Director of Division of Child: Hygiene, Department of Health.