NEUROSURGICAL UNIT

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25714, 28 January 1949, Page 8

NEUROSURGICAL UNIT

NO ANAESTHETIST OBTAINED

HOSPITAL BOARD BLAMES GOVERNMENT

(P.A.) DUNEDIN, Jan. 27. “While I am satisfied with the staff reorganisation that has been carried out at the Dunedin Public Hospital, I am gravely alarmed at the position in the neurosurgical department where we have now no anaesthetist,” said the chairman of the Otago Hospital Board (Dr. A. S. Moody) to-day.

“This creates a situation fraught with the most dangerous potentialities and involves the possibility of unnecessary deaths.

“The Government must accept the responsibility-yneither I nor the hospital board will be held responsible.” Dr. Moody explained that the neurosurgical department was the only complete unit in New Zealand able under its brilliant specialist, Mr Murray Falconer, and his assistant, to undertake delicate types of operation to the brain and spine. This unit had been established by the Health Department and the two full-time surgeons were the only men doing this type of work between Palmerston North and Bluff. All cases in this area were referred to Dunedin for treatment. High Qualifications Wanted “The neurosurgical unit has to have a full-time anaesthetist, and he must be a man of the highest specialist qualifications,” Dr. Moody said, “but from the end of this month we are simply without a specialist anaesthetist. This is the fault of -the Government and the Government alone. Months ago the Health Department was informed that with the resignation of the anaesthetist the neurosurgical unit would be without a specialist anaesthetist. On three occasions last year Mr Falconer impressed on the Minister of Health (Miss M. B. Howard) the calamity that faced the neurosurgical unit. It was further pointed out to Miss Howard in a letter on January 11 that there were not in Dunedin sufficient part-time anaesthetists competent in the skilled, specialist, intratracheal work to cope even with the emergency cases, and Mr Falconer could see no alternative to closing the unit if an anaesthetist could not be obtained —a disheartening blow for all connected with the unit and a sorry state of affairs for the patients who would have to be refused treatment not available to them elsewhere:” Dr. Moody said Miss Howard was informed that Mr Falconer was writing to the medical superintendents of the public hospitals at Christchurch, Wellington, and PaJmerston North advising them of the difficulty that had arisen, and warning them that from the end of January the neurosurgical unit might be unable to accept patients for treatment.

Stabilisation Difficulty Dr. Moody said it was emphasised that this difficulty was due entirely to the refusal of the Health Department to authorise the payment of a salary that would attract a skilled anaesthetist, although the department had been advised to this effect from many quarters and had itself failed to find an anaesthetist for the neurosurgical unit at the salary rate it approved.

Last week, Dr. Moody said, he had made an air trip to Wellington to impress on the Government the critical position. He met the Acting-Prime Minister (Mr Nash), also Mr A. H Nordmeyer (the former Minister), Miss Howard, and the director of the hospitals division of the Health Department (Mr L. C. McNickle).

“I am still waiting for a reply from this impressive aggregation of Ministers.” Dr. Moody said. “The stumbling block between the urgent needs of this national unit and the appointment of an anaesthetist is nothing more or less than stabilisation. The Government will not allow us to offer a salary sufficient to attract a specialist of the calibre we require. The question is: should stabilisation be allowed to interfere when people’s lives are at stake? Is stabilisation to be allowed to affect the health and lives of people throughout New Zealand?”