Doctors Warned Not To Embarrass Minister

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31209, 5 November 1966, Page 1

Doctors Warned Not To Embarrass Minister

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, November 4. A petition sponsored by the New Zealand Medical Association has been distributed in New Plymouth protesting against Health Department action in preventing two doctors from addressing public meetings in the town.

The petition is addressed to the Minister of Health (Mr McKay). Dr. D. M. F. McDonald, medical superintendent of Kingseat Hospital, and Dr. H. R. Bennett, medical superintendent of Tokanui Hospital, were sent a directive by the department urging them “not to embarrass the Minister” in public addresses on mental health treatment in New Zealand. Dr. McDonald said in Auckland tonight that he planned to give several lectures in New Plymouth on mental health problems.

But he had received a directive from the Director of Mental Health, Dr. P. S. W. Mirams, reminding him, that as a public servant, he had a responsibility to implement Government policy. Dr. Bennett received a similar notice.

Dr. McDonald, who said he had recently been reprimanded for his attack on the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Bill said: “The directive urged me to refrain from embarrassing the Minister. Since I could not have spoken on the subject of mental health without doing this, there was nothing to do but call off the meetings. “I feel the public ought to know what the situation is because they are the ones who are going to be asked to cough up and pay for the necessary improvements to the service out of their taxation.”

Dr. McDonald said the most serious problem—“the alarming shortage of staff’—stem-

has had a mental illness is a complete write-off. They have not caught on to the fact that we can do so many things in the way of new forms of treatment.” Staff Shortages i Dr. McDonald is working . with a ratio of about one nurse to every five patients. He estimates that he needs ; five times the staff to give the

med from th* Government’s unrealistic attitude towards the needs for a modern psychiatric hospital. “I think the State has got used to us running on short staff for so long that they think we can go on doing it,” he said. “Their attitude is still a hang-over from the bad old days when there was keen competition to run c hospital as cheaply as possible. “Medical superintendents were proud of the fact that they could get away with the bare minimum of expenses and were overjoyed, if, at the end of the year, their hospital proved the cheapest to run. “The medical establishment is still run by the old school who think that anyone who

patients all the attention they demand. “The trouble is that most of your nursing staff, both male and female, spend 75 per cent of their time doing domestic chores,’’ he said. “After a few months of this, many people are broken both physically and spiritually because they have not got the time to do anything really worthwhile towards helping patients to recover.”

Dr. Bennett said that until recently there had been no significant increase in his establishment for 20 years—even though the intake of patients was soaring. “The whole thing has got to the stage now where a major investigation into staff numbers is needed,” he said. “I personally have no doubt that we shall soon see a considerable increase in nursing establishments, but it remains to be seen whether this increase will be sufficient.”