Plastic Surgery Unit

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27669, 27 May 1955, Page 12

Plastic Surgery Unit

The North Canterbury Hospital Board has little alternative to using every reasonable argument to persuade Mr J. J. Brownlee to continue his work as director of the plastic surgery unit at Burwood. This is as much a national responsibility as a local one, because patients from all over New Zealand depend on skilful, and often continuing, treatment at Burwood for the repair of congenital defects or of the results of accidents. Particularly during, the absence overseas of Mr L. J. Roy, the assistant surgeon, Mr Brownlee can scarcely be replaced at short notice. Mr Brownlee’s offer to perform certain work free of charge after his appointment at Burwood ends would leave a great field in which the cost of private treatment would deprive sufferers of urgently needed help. The causes!

of the trouble between Mr Brownlee and the board (of which he is also a member) are not altogether clear, except that Mr Brownlee complains that the board has been tardy in providing minimum conditions for the successful operation of the unit, fears that the introduction of outpatient plastic surgery treatment would lower the standard of in-patient treatment, and is disturbed by a possibility that the board may depart from the principle of having a single head of the unit. The complaint by the father of a patient and the hospital committee’s handling of it may have brought matters to a head, but the board can scarcely have been ignorant before of Mr Brownlee’s feelings. The public may well ask why nothing was done until only a week remained before Mr Brownlee was due to leave Burwood. If the board had considered Mr Brownlee’s attitude unreasonable and bound ultimately to lead to an open breach, it should surely have made arrangements that it considered adequate for carrying on the unit after he left.

In fairness to other board members, it must be said that Mr Brownlee would have been much more helpful if he had given them clear notice of his intention not to continue at Burwood under existing conditions. The three weeks between the closing of applications and the end of his appointment was obviously insufficient time for filling a specialist position such as this; and no-one would know better than Mr Brownlee that even a short interval in the unit’s continuous work without a senior surgeon would be serious. If the board has been at fault in letting matters drift, it can, at least, be given credit for fully ventilating the dispute now. Although this is no more than the board’s duty, the board, and other local authorities, do not always act as properly in circumstances like these. Perhaps, now that the air*has been cleared, Mr Brownlee and the board may be able to reach some understanding which will permit the good work at Burwood to go on without interruption. Certainly both parties owe it to the public t to I attempt this in a spirit of good will.