Surgeon’s stand contrary to advice

Press, 21 November 1987, Page 14

Surgeon’s stand contrary to advice

PA Wellington A Wellington surgeon plans to refuse to do surgery on people seeking non-urgent surgery unless they undergo an A.I.D.S. test.

Professor William Isbister has said that he would not undertake surgery on anyone who refused to take the test. However, the director of the New Zealand A.I.D.S. Foundation, Mr Warren Lindberg, said that Professor Isbister’s stand was contrary to the widely accepted recommendations of the A.I.D.S. advisory committee.

The committee has stated that surgeons should already be taking precautions against other

infectious diseases and therefore it was not necessary to require testing for the A.I.D.S. virus. Mr Lindberg said the test had to be carefully considered by an individual before taking it “And the kind of pressure which is proposed is pretty unreasonable.” The associate professor of surgery at Wellington Hospital, Mr Richard Stewart, said there was quite a lot of sympathy for Professor Isbister’s views.

However, it raised a number of complicated issues, particularly about the long period before-the presence of antibodies could be ascertained and the reliability of the

A.I.D.S. virus test Meanwhile, the Medical Association will meet on December 2 to consider the adoption of a definitive position regarding the disease. It has been suggested that voluntary testing should be encouraged for patients requiring surgical or other invasive procedures. -i It also suggests that medical S practitioners doing surgical or other invasive procedures should be encouraged to be tested. More than 70 per cent of New Zealand’s doctors are members of * the association and would be expected to .conform to its position.