Frightened To Take Child To Hospital

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29994, 1 December 1962, Page 12

Frightened To Take Child To Hospital

(New Zealand Press Association)

ROTORUA, November 30,

A mother told the Coroner’s Court in Rotorua today that she did not take her sick child to hospital because of a fear “they would put tubes in it and it would die.” The Coroner (Mr E. C. East), in finding that the child died of bronchial pneumonia, told the woman the child would have been alive if she had taken it to the hospital when advised to do so by a doctor.

The mother, June Mary Marino, married, of Ngapuna. said she was afraid to take the child to hospital because she had seen a relativ- die when "they put tubes in 41 im.”

She said she had not believed the child, Sharleen June Marino, was so ill. Dr. J. A. K. Commons said he attended the child at its home on July 10. She was suffering from a mild gastroenteritis. He left a prescription with the mother and an instruction that she was to call him if the child did not Dr. F. B. Sill said that after examining the child, he told the mother the child would die if it was not taken to hospital immediately. He gave the father and mother a note to the hospital requesting urgent admission for the child. “I doubted that my instruction would be carried ouit, and on telephoning the hospital I found the child had not been admitted." said the witness.

Dr. G. Townsend said the child was dead when he reached the home on July 13. The body was warm, but he could not give a time of death and had not issued a certificate of the cause of death because he had not attended the child when it was ill. The child’s mother said she continued using the prescription and other treatment. During the night of July 13 the child was in front of the fire and when she examined it it was not breathing. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was tried without success. “We are fortunate in Rotorua that we have doctors who will always come to a call,” commented the Coroner when he returned his verdict.

Crane Topples.—Three men were killed today when a crane being used in train track work toppled 40ft from an elevated section of a line in Brooklyn, police reported. —New York, November 28.