Heart report ‘self-serving’

Press, 23 December 1986, Page 8

Heart report ‘self-serving’

PA Auckland General practitioners have termed the cardiac surgical services review a self-serving document dominated by the views of surgeons. The report recommended that routine heart surgery be increased from 1400 to 2000 a year and suggested a limited number of transplants at Green Lane Hospital, Auckland. The chairman of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, Dr Derry Seddon, said the report represented a “narrow sectional view” which ignored the rest of the health care system. He said the report paid lip service to the need for reorganisation of health services but ignored this

in its recommendations. The college, he said, wished to make three points: O Coronary artery disease was on the decline in New Zealand as elsewhere in the Western world. © Coronary by-pass surgery, although it could relieve pain, rarely increased life span substantially. © Increasing surgical services must decrease services available for disease prevention and health promotion. The Nurses Society has welcomed the report and says the choice of Auckland for a heart transplant unit is logical. The society’s director, Mr David Wills, said any new service must be funded in the normal, fashion by the taxpayer.