Women’s hospital to be closed

Press, 24 August 1976, Page 12

Women’s hospital to be closed

The first hospital in England run by women for women is to be closed, and men are to blame, according to the New Zealander who heads the campaign to save the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, writes an N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent in London.

“The body that decides our future is composed of men, most of whom think our patients are silly old women who ought to face up to being treated by a I male doctor,” said Mrs I Pippa Pearson who is from ’Takapuna. I The hospital was opened 185 years ago by England’s ! first" woman doctor, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. And I ironically the decision to close it was made by a woman.

In February, the then i Health Minister (Mrs Barbara Castle) said the building would be shut although the hospital would be transferred as a separate unit to lan existing hospital. I But that will take at least I two years and the hospital ’may not be able to survive (that long. | “The hospital was a free i hospital funded by bequests until 1948 when it joined the I National Health Service. And that’s when all the trouble i began,” Mrs Pearson said. “Since then the building has i been allowed to run down Iby health authorities run by men who didn’t like, the idea of a women's hospital. Now the building is so bad that we cannot use our operating , theatres, maternity home or the top three floors, which means that only 25 of the ' 140 beds are available.” Estimates for repairing the present building run to about $540,000, with about $90,000 of that needed for i work in the liftshafts.

No health authority would consider spending that much to repair an old building nor, Mrs Pearson said, did the local health authority want to relocate the hospital. It says the E.G.A. should be nationally funded. “Seventy-three per cent of our patients come from outside our health area. We agree that the hospital should be nationally funded, but we don’t seem to be making much progress towards it,” Mrs Pearson said. The Community Health Council last month wrote to the Health Minister (Mr David Ennals) asking for urgent action to be taken. No reply has been received and Mr Ennals has gone on holiday. EMBARRASSMENT

“We still fill a real need. There are always queues at the out-patients clinic. Women of all ages come to us with problems they were too embarrassed to mention to their doctors or even their husbands,” Mrs Pearson said. Sometimes women come in with advanced stages of diseases, such as cancer. They knowingly let symptoms get worse because they are embarrassed to go to their doctor so they can be referred to us. For example, a woman who has painful intercourse might have come to hospital to have a sore toe X-rayed. Unfortunately, she probably waited until she really had a sore toe and by that time she could be in serious trouble.

Among its consultants, the E.G.A. has specialists in genital plastic surgery, genital dermatology and psychosexual problems. There is only one other hospital like the E.G.A. in England. But it is in South London and Mrs Pearson said it was already overburdened

and too far for many women to travel to. “Women at this hospital have used the genteel approach for too long. We are going to have to become militant in order to preserve the hospital,” she said. Mrs Pearson, who is a medical social worker at the hospital, said this experience had given her a special pride in the facilities available to women in New Zealand.