GROSS NEGLIGENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 17, 21 January 1916, Page 6

GROSS NEGLIGENCE

One Government after another has been guilty of shocking, disgraceful negligence in regard to the "dumping" of "D.T. " cases, including criminals, into the general hospitals. All parties have been one party in this scandalous forgetfulness, despite scores of reminders. -Some of theso cases are foul in mind as well as in body, and their language, in delirium, matches both. Nurses have sometimes been obliged to handle these very disgusting half-demented persons, whoso coarse noisiness has been positively harmful, as well as extremely unpleasant, to decent patients. This gross misuse of the ordinary public hospitals has been repeatedly exposed, but it has continued in Wellington because the Hospital Board has lacked money to provide suitable accommodation for "D.T. "cases. Instead of money, the board is receiving threats that it is bound by law to arrange for the treatment of these cases. As the board has no special ward for them, tlie position for the public to consider is that the board is to be forced to admit "D.T." cases (including "attempted suicides"), who are an unbearable nuisance to others as weli as to the nurses. It passes understanding how the "authorities" in New Zealand lag behind some civilised countries in this matter. It cannot be niggardliness, because public money is usually spent more than lavishly enough in all manner of ways. The probable explanation is the absence of agitation by nurses and patients who hare suffered grievously. The press has made, openings—"prepared the position," as military folk say, with high explosive—but the bombardment has not been followed by a rush of people, resolute for reform. Rushes for expenditure on other things have occurred, and so the " D.T. " disgrace has persisted. How many more years are to pass before the long-promised provision is to be made for these drinksodden cases ? How many more years are nurses and quiet patients to suffer the ravings of those half-maniacal cases?