Essex close-down not yet official

Press, 6 May 1980, Page 6

Essex close-down not yet official

~ Formai approval to close ■Essex Maternity Hospital must - still be given by the Minister of Health (Mr Gair) even though the North Canterbury Hospital Board has said that no more patients will be accepted after June 17. The member of Parliament for Christchurch Central (Mr G. W. R. Palmer) said yesterday in a prepared statement that the board had no legal power to close the hospital.. “The procedure is that the board’s application for closure must first be considered by the- Hospitals’ Advisory Council. After examining all the evidence the council makes a recommendation to the Minister of Health,”’Mr Palmer said. - The chief executive for the board JMr R. I. Parker) said that the bead’s decision to close the hospital was purely a local decision and it still awaited the'approval of the Minister. “We made submission to the Hospitals’ Advisory Council at the same time as the decision to close the hospital was made at board level,”'Mr Parker said. • The closing of the hospital

was controversial and the established procedure must be followed. A number ot outstanding questions remained to be settled before anv Ministerial consent could be contemplated, Mr Palmer said. He questioned tne neea for the hospital- to be closed at all — the small-neigh-bourhood atmosphere of the hospital had been mucn appreciated by people in his electorate. ■ Mr Palmer wanted to know what use. would be made of the building should the hospital be closed and what alterantive arrangements had been made for women who would otherwise have had their babies at Essex. , ' ■ He also asked whether doctors treating women who would have gone to Essex would be able to treat them at Christchurch Women s Hospital. Some doctors haa told him they were nert satisfied with \vhat had been offered by the hospital board by the way of access to beds at Christchurch Women's Hospital, said Mr Palmer. , . Mr Parker said the board had decided to close the hos-

pital because the outdated buildings would cost m6 re than $500,000 to upgrade There was also the matter of safety in a two-storey build.' ing without a lift.

Essex was uneconomic to administer because the number of births there could be handled at Christchurch Women’s and Burwood hospitals. The board was still looking at “various options” for the future use of the building but hoped to sell it. Mr Parker said the board’ had increased general practitioners’ access to Christchurch Women’s Hospital.“They had access to 6(l()' beds a year — now theyhave access to 1000.”

The board had discussed all implications Of the closing of Essex with general practitioners and obstetricians. The date of closing had been announced for the benefit of doctors and patients who might wish to use the hospital.

“We would never suggest emphatically that the Hospitals’ Advisory Council would close Essex. But in view of the problems at the hospital we are reasonably confident the council will approve.”