FALSE REPORTS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 74, 20 December 1933, Page 12

FALSE REPORTS

Death of Hospital Patients

AUCKLAND COMPLAINT By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, December 19. The recent perpetration of what was described as a cruel and despicable hoax was revealed at a meeting of the Auckland Hospital Board. A report from the house committee stated tihat on a recent evening the father of a girl who was a patient in the hospital had received a telephone message stating the girl had died. The message purported to come from the hospital. The Rev. W. C. Wood, chairman of the committee, said the information had not been sent from the hospital. It was a definite rule that all deaths had to be reported in writing to responsible officials, and the notes were recorded in a special book of all messages sent. In this case the report was not given in the form of words employed at the hospital. The father of the child was not on the telephone, but the message had been telephoned to a neighbour. The father had immediately gone to the hospital and found his daughter was not dead. Nevertheless both he and his wife had received a severe shock.

Unfortunately this was the second recent occasion on which bogus telephone reports had been sent to relatives of hospital patients. “It is a serious matter,” Mr. Wood said. “The hospital staff is in no way concerned, but the person sending these messages should not be treated lightly.”