“Open Door” In U.S. Child Hospitals

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 9

“Open Door” In U.S. Child Hospitals

In the United States it had been possible to adopt an “open door” policy in hospitals concerned with the intensive care of very young infants, said the director of the neonatal department at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Baltimore (Professor M. E. Avery), in Christchurch yesterday.

Here as a guest speaker to talk to specialists in obstetrics, pediatrics and gy naecology, she said yesterday that this policy was possible because it had been possible to reduce cross infection and allow people into the hospital concerned with treatment in a consultative capacity.

“We do not have these visitors wearing caps, gowns and masks, and we have also had parents in the intensive care unit,” Professor Avery said. This was possible because of rigorous attention to handwashing and improved air conditioning systems which exchanged the air frequently. Professor Avery said that more was now known about

drug therapy and the effects of drugs on infants. It was also possible to measure anything in an infant that it was possible to measure in an adult patient, she said.

Blood tests. X-ray studies and other examinations were all possible with the development of equipment in miniature.

Asked whether New Zealand was advanced in this field, Professor Avery said that the neonatal unit at the Christchurch Women’s Hospital was doing this work and was most up-to-date.

Questioned on the criticism of the president of the Christchurch Parents’ Centre (Mrs N. Sutherland) about the lack of coverage in the conference of psychological problems in very young infants, she said she was “very cool to this criticism." It could well be said, on the same basis, that the con-

ference was not discussing cancer. Any conference when it was planned had to be limited, and here it was unusual for pediatricians and obstetricians to meet at the same gathering. Subjects were being covered in depth and the conference was concerned with physiological problems of life and death. Not one person at the conference was unaware of the importance of psychological studies and obstetricians and others there were more aware than any other group of physicians.

“I could well ask these women what in particular bothers them," Professor Avery said.