Govt attacked for ‘collusion’ at Carrington

Press, 12 October 1988, Page 8

Govt attacked for ‘collusion’ at Carrington

By

GLEN PERKINSON,

in Wellington

The Opposition yesterday accused the Government of being in collusion with the Auckland Hospital Board over the Carrington Hospital debacle.

The Opposition called a snap debate on the Mason report into the care of New Zealand’s criminally insane.

Its spokesman on health, Mr Don McKinnon, said the Government had ignored signals at Carrington Hospital that culminated in escapes, murders and injuries. The Minister of Health, Mr Caygill, was refusing the report’s recommendation to appoint a commissioner to oversee mental health services in Auckland, Mr McKinnon said.

Mr Caygill has denied the assertions. Mr McKinnon said he still demanded the dismissal of the management trio of the Auckland Hospital Board implicated in the report as being at fault for Carrington’s problems. He called for the resignation of the entire Auckland Hospital Board. Auckland people had “no faith” in the board members.

Mr McKinnon said he would not “tie a dog up” in Carrington Hospital. The Government was colluding with the board, he said, because Mr Caygill had not publicly de-

manded the resignation of the management trio (its medical superintendent-in-chief, Dr Leslie Honeyman, the general manager, Mr lan Campbell, and the principal nurse, Ms Ann Murphy) nor had he appointed a commissioner of mental health. The Government was letting an obviously incompetent board “sort things out themselves.” Mr Caygill said that although he was not empowered under any act to appoint a commissioner as recommended, he had already acted in that direction. He had appointed the Health Department’s Director of Mental Health, Dr Basil James, to act as his representative in Auckland.

However, the Opposition told the Government it would support the passage of legislation allowing the Minister to appoint a commissioner responsible to the Minister to control the Auckland situation.

Mr Caygill said his priority was to rectify the Carrington and Auckland problems and not to embark on a witch-hunt of board members. Nevertheless, he said he had told the board, “I

believe, as the Committee of Inquiry does, that some members of the board can no longer keep their positions.”

“I have conveyed that to the board and I have no doubt that that will be carried out. I will make it my duty to ensure that it is acted on — but it is not the end of the matter,” Mr Caygill said.

It would be “dishonouring” the Mason report and its Committee of Inquiry to say the matter was as “simple” as sacking board members or staff.

The report advocated a wide series of reforms for the psychiatric service in New Zealand and it was the Government’s “urgent” intention that its recommendations were implemented. He attacked the Opposition for "trying to make headlines” when much of the blame for the Carrington situation lay with it.

The last National Administration had failed to act on a 1983 report recommending changes to the psychiatric service in Auckland. The Mason report said if that report had been implemented the present problems could have been avoided.