CAUSE OF HOSPITAL SCANDAL.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXVII, Issue 1362, 28 May 1895, Page 5

CAUSE OF HOSPITAL SCANDAL.

A SERIOUS CHARGE. In a letter published in the Auckland Herald of recent date, Dr R. H. Bakewell says :—" The Auckland and Christchurch Hospital have both for many years, been remarkable for the perpetual succession of scandals and disturbances, of changes of administration, and of dissatisfaction on the part of the public in connection with them. C have read much and heard much about these two hospitals but I have never yet seen any article or letter which touched on the root of the matter. I therefore venture, as one who has been for many years a hospital official, both in England, in other colonies, and in New Zealand, to lift the veil, and expose the real causes of all this turmoil." After explaining at considerable length the rule and practice regarding hospital appointments in England, and condemning the New Zealand practice of appointing general medical practitioners to be hospital surgeons, Dr Bakewell makes the following serious allegations:—" In this colony, the svstem of appointing men by personal favor and interest, without any regard to their professional qualifications, attainments or experience has produced the most disastrous consequences. I have seen but little of the operations practised here, because the surgeons carefully avoid invitiug or even encouraging the presence of surgeons who are not on the staff, but I have seen some cases of sheer butchery as nearly made one sick. On one occasion I was present at an operation for ovariotomy, and left after seeing the operators for half an hour trying to get at the tumor. I have seen a whole staff egregiously wrong in their anatomy, and cutting down for an organ they could not find, simply because it never was in the place they were cutting. I have seen a case of cancer in which the surgeon had removed only part of the disease, the wound had conseqently never healed, and I was obliged to perform a far more extensive and severe operation than would have been required at first, if the whole diseased mass had been removed. But I might tell of many other cases which have convinced me that the present system of election, both to the resident and visiting appointments, is radically wrong." He suggests that all hospital appointments should be open for competition, and that examinations should be held with a view to dismissing all members of existing staffs who failed to show their competency.