‘Disturbing aspect’ to heart surgery report

Press, 9 January 1987, Page 2

‘Disturbing aspect’ to heart surgery report

PA Wellington Heart surgery would have no good future in New Zealand if it was going to be politically interfered with all the time, said a Wellington heart surgeon, Mr Allan Hilless.

He said he had decided to take his cardiothoracic skills overseas since the publication of the Lang committee report on heart surgery in New Zealand was released last month.

The report had disturbing aspects to it. It was political, not scientific, he said.

“There would appear to be no good future for cardiac surgery in New Zealand if it is going to be politically interfered with all the time.” He said he would not say where he intended to emigrate to. He was waiting to hear from the people with whom he was seeking a job, and expected to hear within a

month. “My problem is to do what I have been trained to do. They are limiting that in New Zealand, there is no doubt about it,” he said.

The report to the Government of the Cardiac Surgical Services Review Committee, chaired by a former Treasury secretary, Mr Henry Lang, repeated the recommendations of a similar committee in 1980, that many more heart by-pass operations should be done, and also recommended a limited number of heart transplants at Green Lane Hospital, Auckland.

This last recommendation has surprised Wellington Hospital heart surgery staff, as their cardiothoracic unit was last year upgraded to trans plant capability, while the Green Lane unit is believed to be planning upgrading facilities and

schedules to a transplantcapable level.

Mr Hilless said he believed there were other inconsistencies in the report.

“A lot of the conclusions that are drawn are not referenced. A lot of the reference material they have used is really quite old. It’s a little bit disturbing for a committee which cost $60,000 to do such a thing — very worrying.” The report had said that detailed, systematic costings for heart surgery, and cost benefit analysis, were "almost completely absent,” Mr Hilless said. “These have been done. A complete detailed cost benefit analysis was done in the United Kingdom. It’s not even referenced. A lot of the material is missing.” 4 Referring to the decision to perform a heart transplant programme at

Green Lane because it served the largest population, he said: “You do not need a big population for a limited programme. Things like this are really disturbing.”

Mr Hilless said the report did have its positive aspects. “They have said exactly what was said in 1980, that we should be doing more by-passes. Everyone knows that.”

“They made some suggestions that it could be funded better. That will be a purely political decision, whether there will be any special fund for it or not. If something comes of that it may be a good thing. But it’s fairly far down the line.

“They are only suggestions, and what the Minis-, ter (of Health) decides, the Minister decides. It is obviously a political, not scientific, matter.