Remarks on cot deaths questioned

Press, 8 May 1986, Page 5

Remarks on cot deaths questioned

The Canterbury Hospital Board will meet the Cot Death Society after criticism that the board is not doing enough about cot deaths. Some board members had questioned the reported comments of a visiting expert on cot death, Dr Shirley Tonkin, that specialised, hospitalbased assessment centres should be set up for atrisk babies. The board’s health services committee was told in a report yesterday that the board’s pediatricians were “fully aware of all the problems associated with sudden infant death syndrome. Standard management practices are observed.”

No information was available to show that the sort of assessment suggested made a difference to the management of infants with apnoea (breathing problems), said the report. The committee was told that standards of manage-

ment in Canterbury were “reasonable and appropriate.”

A committee member, Mrs Joyce Mclver, said that there was a lot of concern that not enough was being done. She hoped that publicity about what the board was doing would “put us in the clear.” Surgery Some surgery at Christchurch Hospital will be cancelled next week because of an acute shortage of theatre nurses. The hospital’s medical superintendent, Dr David Andrews, told the board’s health services committee yesterday that one theatre session a day would be affected.

The chief nurse, Miss Margaret Darby, put the shortage down to coincidence. Several nurses had resigned, or were taking maternity leave, and replacements were not immediately available, she said.