KELVIN HOSPITAL

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18151, 14 August 1924, Page 9

KELVIN HOSPITAL

COMMISSION'S REPORT TABLED. MINISTER DEFENDS HEALTH DEPARTMENT. (pBESS ASSOCIATION TELBGBAH.) WELLINGTON, August 13. In the House of Representatives this afternoon, tho Hon. Sir Maui Pomare laid on the table the report of the Royal Commission on Kelvin Maternity Hospital (Auckland). Mr Savage said the report disclosed a distinctly sorry state of affairs, and demanded to know why it had been supplied to tho newspapers but withheld from members until it was laid on the table of the House. Since the Commission's report the Public Health Department seemed to have grown very active, and ho wondered whose scalp they were after. His view waß that the" Department should hegin at home. Prior to the report the Department did not seem very anxious, but now they were opening up a campaign which they should have conducted long ago. The Auckland Health Office had been understaffed, which was false economy. Mr Lysnar suggested that one or two administrative heads should be engaged to look after the hospitals of the country. The report certainly disclosed a laxity of authoritative control. Mr Fraser drew attention to the charge by the chairman of the Commission that te"»-rrport had beCn held back for three weeks to allow the issue of overdue regulations by the Health Department. Each party to the dispute endeavoured to shield itself by attacking the obvious blunders and weaknesses of the other side, but_ the position was too serious for recrimination. The Hon. Sir Maui Pomare, replying to criticism, said that if the Department investigated every death it would require a staff as large as the whole Civil Service. The Health Department was protecting life every day, and members displayed ignorance of the facts if they blamed .the Department for the deaths at the Kelvin Hospital. The duty of the Department only came in as a secondary matter of medical attendance on reported infectious disease. The critics should be fair. In the past the Health Department had been a football for a good many''people, and it had never had a ehance to kick back. He denied the charge that the report had been held back. The regulations now issued had been prepared a year ago. There was nothing new in the report, and the criticism of the Department in this respect was unfounded, unfair, and unjust. The Health Department in New Zealand was the best organisation of its kind in the world. Instead _of decrying it, people should give it credit for the work it had done, and applaud the Government for the way it had helped the Department to do ite work.