New Carrington chief aware task difficult

Press, 24 September 1987, Page 19

New Carrington chief aware task difficult

PA Auckland The new head of Carrington Hospital says it will take a lot rpore than his efforts to pull the hospital out of the trouble into which it has sunk. Dr Peter McGeorge took over this week as acting superintendent of Carrington for six months. “One thing I want to make clear is that I am not a messiah and it is going to take a lot more than me to put things right,” he said. “It will require a coordinated effort from everyone „ involved and people looking for the positive t in one another rather than the negative.”

Dr McGeorge said the basis for that to happen already existed. “I hope to set up hos-pital-wide forums for staff to express their views and concerns and to come up with solutions on how Carrington can work better.” Dr McGeorge also wants to involve the patients by having ward meetings to let them know what is going on at the hospital. Dr McGeorge said staff dissatisfaction over the housing of dangerous patients had been behind much of the trouble at Carrington, but he was confident the problems could be remedied swiftly.

He plans to give more attention to when patients are discharged, particularly dangerous ones. “We need to be firmer perhaps about keeping committals in place to make sure people are not put back into the community before they are ready,” he said. “There is a .civil rights issue involved for the patients, but I think the rights of the public have also been lost sight of, and they need to feel safe.” The Auckland Hospital Board’s decision to hire another psychiatrist to deal with the dangerously; mentally ill should make the discharge procedure a lot more reliable.