Antagonism to new hospice at Burwood

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 3

Antagonism to new hospice at Burwood

A new hospice for the dying at Burwood Hospital may be closed because of the antagonism it has aroused outside the hospital, according to the hospital’s medical superintendent, Dr R. H. Claridge. “I have been somewhat disappointed at the reaction of various people who are working outside Burwood Hospital. The feed-back from them has been very discouraging," Dr Claridge said, in a report to yesterday's meeting bf the North Canterbury Hospital Board’s health services committee. “It has never been our intention to encroach on anyone else's work, and we certainly do not wish to become involved in a demarcation dispute," he said. “We had no idea that the hospice, which is on a sixmonth trial basis, would arouse so much antagonism and maybe it is better to curtail the project now," Dr Claridge said. Neither Dr Claridge nor the board’s medical superin-tendent-in-chief, Dr R. A. Fairgray, would say where the criticism of the" hospice had come from. The four-bed hospice is set in four rooms, previously unoccupied, in a brick building at Burwood Hospital, and it is run as an extension to the hospital’s Ward 6. Dr Claridge said that the only. cost of coverting the empty rooms into the hospice had been some new wallpaper, a $2O ramp, and $2OO for plastic containers to keep food warm on transfer from the kitchen. The hospice was intended to complete Burwood Hospital's services for the aged, provide a ■ service for the community, and help nursing staff gain skills, in care of fhe terminally ill, he said.