Head of heart unit approves

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33050, 18 October 1972, Page 1

Head of heart unit approves

(From GARRY ARTHUR) LONDON, October 17. The Government’s decision to establish the country’s third heart surgery unit at Dunedin has earned the full approval of the unit’s first director, Mr P. J. Molloy.

In fact, Mr Molloy had recommended two years ago that the unit go to Dunedin

instead, of Christchurch, and his acceptance of the position of. director was conditional on that happening.

At present consultant cardiac surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Mr Molloy expects to take up his new job in January or February next year. But he will make a preliminary visit to Dunedin in December to head of a working party on staffing and equipment. “I entirely approve of the decision,” said Mr Molloy, “and I am anxious to get on and get a unit going for the South Island. It is hard on people to have to travel a thousand miles for cardiac treatment.

"This will certainly be a big stimulus for the departments of medicine and surgery at the Otago Medical School. Everyone is keen and willing to go,” he said* Mr Molloy, who comes from Auckland, said that the setting up of a fourth heart unit, at Christchurch, would require very careful evaluation when the time came, especially on economic grounds. A lot would depend on how coronary artery surgery developed.