Minister’s illness

Press, 31 March 1980, Page 1

Minister’s illness

The Minister of Transport (Mr McLachlan) has been treated for shingles in the eye at! the Princess Margaret Hospital. He is expected to be released from hospital in one or two days.

Mr McLachlan was admitted under another name after his last official engagement, when he opened a village for the elderly at Akaroa on Tuesday.

He occupies a room in the hospital under the name of “Mr Campbell.” (Campbell is his second Christian name.) Visitors are allowed in only with the ward’s permission, and the hospital said yesterday that he was jn no condition to give ’‘The Press” an interview.-

However, his wife said last evening that Mr McLachlan should be out of hospital in “a day or two.” He had come back recently from Australia with shingles in the eye, and he had gone back to work “too early.” Mrs McLachlan said she had had a minor operation herself recently, and she had persuaded the hospital to keep her husband in for another two days while she “got back op my feet.”

The hospital said yesterday that it had no patient by the name of McLachlan, but! it gave Mr Campbell’s condition as “fairly comfortable.”

11l health has kept Mr McLachlan out of his office a number of times in the last 14 months, and

his latest illness has renewed rumours that he may announce his retirement in 1981, when he will be 56. He was hot in Wellington last Monday, i when the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) visited the i scene of the rail accident in Wellington. It is believed that Mr McLachlan was resting near Christ* church. 1

The absence of Mr McLachlan and the Minis* ter of Defence (Mr Gill), who has just undergone surgery, may leave the way open for a Cabinet reshuffle this year. It is thought that Mr Muldoon may announce changes in the Cabinet either before the session starts on May 15, or after Parliament rises at the end of the year.