Heart report secrecy

Press, 1 June 1981, Page 1

Heart report secrecy

A report on the three heart surgery units in New Zealand may have been kept confidential because it mirrored Christchurch cardiologists’ dissatisfaction with the performance of the Dunedin unit, suspects a former Labour Minister of Health, and a member of the North Canterbury Hospital Board, Mr T. M.’McGuigan.

The report comprises the results of audits of the units at Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin, and conclusions provided by the Minister of Health (Mr Gair) and the Director-General of Health (Dr H. J. H. Hiddlestone).

It has been released only to the chairman (Mr T. C. Grigg), the medical superintendent (Dr R. A. Fairgray) and “certain clinicians” within the North Canterbury Hospital Board.

“Local cardiologists are disappointed at that. They feel that the auditor’s report supported what they have

been saying all along,” said Mr McGuigan.

“If the conclusions are right, why does it have to be kept secret? I am certain that the report vindicates the stand they (the cardiologists) have been taking,” he said. Mr McGuigan has read the report,' but it was not supplied to him through the board.

He was also unhappy with, the conclusions, and said that the Minister had not kept his promise to release the full report to “the board,” which Mr McGuigan alleged was made when a summary and press release were distributed last month. The report had not been released to the whole board.

“It should be made public, and the Minister should also listen to the local cardiologists. They have been kept entirely out of the picture,” Mr McGuigan said. Because Christchurch did not have a heart surgery unit, the Minister saw no reason to consult them.

‘ They should be given the opportunity to tell him firsthand what their reservations about the report are,” he said.

A deputation from the board would visit . Wellington later this week to discuss the “whole field” of cardiac care, said Mr Grigg. He confirmed that an attempt would be made to persuade Mr Gair to allow the report to be made public.

Mr Grigg said that he would like it made public with only some small details, relating to individuals, deleted from it.

Its release could help restore the public’s confidence in that field, although he would riot like it to be done at the expense of any one unit which might be found to be offering less, or was less successful, than another. Mr Grigg could not confirm whether the, Christchurch cardiologists’ opinions had been supported by the auditor's report. He

Said that Mr McGuigan might have seen the report, butihe had not yet “availed” himself of it.

“I am not in a position to comment- on the report because it is still an in-commit-tee matter,”; Mr Grigg said. The head of the Christchurch Clinical School’s department of medicine, Professor D.W. Beaven, said that he had not seen the report, which he ’ would prefer to do before commenting on whether it should be released to the public.

The Labour member of Parliament for Papariui (Mr M. K. Moore) said last? evening that, he had sent ;a telegram to Mr Gair, asking for a copy of the report. He said it was an “outrage”- That it had been released to only one or two members of the Hospital Board when the whole board had been elected by the public.

“Mr Gair may be playing ducks arid drakes with it, or he may be just incompetent,” he said.