Use volunteers for checks—Y.W.G.A.

Press, 1 December 1987, Page 8

Use volunteers for checks—Y.W.G.A.

PA Auckland Hospitals should use volunteers when teaching medical students vaginal examinations, says the Young Women’s Christian Association. An association spokeswoman, Sue Neal, told the cervical cancer inquiry in Auckland yesterday that many women were happy to present themselves as conscious participants in internal examinations for teaching purposes. Practice on anaesthetised patients

without their consent was unnecessary and must never be allowed. Ms Neal said that teaching and therapeutic roles were in conflict at National Women’s Hospital, but the academic aspect must never override patient rights. * It was important that doctors always sought consent for examinations and treatments. She asked that patients’ rights be written into legislation. Many Pacific Island women were distressed at doctors talking over them

rather than at them, and found difficulty asserting themselves' when authorities were present In large teaching hospitals like < National Women’s, patients were pushed through “on a conveyer belt” with everything geared towards doctors’ time, she said. For patients to give informed consent an advocate should be Introduced who could double as an interpreter for women from non-European ethnic groups.