Buller without a surgeon

Press, 22 February 1978, Page 6

Buller without a surgeon

The West Coast Hospital Board is likely to consider whether it tried hard enough to get a relief surgeon for the Buller Hospital when it meets on Wednesday. On January 30 the hospital’s medical superintendent and surgeon (Mr R. Bhattacharyya) left on 16 weeks study leave overseas. Buller people were concerned that this would leave the 10,000 people in their district without a surgeon. The Westport Borough Council said it was not good enough and sent a telegram to the Minister of Health (Mr Gill) expressing its concern. On February 8 the Mayor of Westport (Mr J. Dellaca) said the board’s chairman (M T. W. Lee) had told him that the board had made “strenuous efforts’’ to find a relief surgeon. This is the crux of the I matter, because it seems ! that even the chairman of the Buller Hosoital Com- i mittee (Mrs V. M. Gray) did not at first know how long : Mr Bhattacharyya would be away. i

She told a Buller Hospital committee meeting last Monday evening that when Mr Bhattacharyya applied for study leave, she and a former board member supported it “on the proviso that adequate coverage would be provided at Buller Hosoital in his absence.” The application was not made to the committee but to the Hospital Board and was kept in the confidential section of its minutes. This meant the committee never; knew about it, she said. i She alleged that informa-1 tion about the whole matter 1 had been hidden from the! public. Mr Lee had told her that’ he had not told Mr Dellaca \ that “strenuous efforts” were made to get a relief ' surgeon for Buller Hospital, i | she said. i “He claimed only that. ! every effort would be made to fly surgeons to Buller if! emergency cases were so! bad that they could not be! moved,” she said. But Mr Dellaca told a special Westport Borough

Council meeting last Tuesday that he had telephoned! Mr Lee, who stood by his! earlier statement that! strenuous efforts had been; made. “I do not question the ac-! curacy of what Mr Lee; said,” Mr Dellaca said. The matter arose on January 23 when the board’s medical superintendent-in-chief (Mr J. Hastings) announced that Mr Bhattacharyya was going on three [months study leave overiseas. He said no surgery would be done while Mr Bhattacharyya w r as away and that the hospital would be staffed by the resident medical officer (Dr J. Maharail. The arrangements: announced by Mr Hastings were: normal specialist clinics would continue, but spe- . cialists from Greymouth. would take over general sur-i gical clinics, visiting West-; port about once every fort- J night; the one-day clinics for' re'erred patients would con-i tinue until Mr Bhatta-! charyya returned; and all.

emergency surgery cases would be sent to Greymouth. This last point caused most concern, because it would mean trips of up to 100 kilometres from Westport to Greymouth. Air ambulances on stand-by were suggested. Mr Hastings said similar arrangements had been made in the past when Westport was left without a resident surgeon. He said he had bad indirect contact with the Minister of Health, through the Health Department, and the board’s action had been approved. According to a statement last Thursday by Mr Dellaca, Westoort is usually served by four doctors. But only three have been avail* able over the last six months. He said that one was on holiday until February 27 and another would start his holiday on March 1. This would leave only two covering the town. Last week Dr Maharaj was reported to have worked 16 days without a break and to have been on call 24 hours a day.