BOARD REMOVED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 104, 30 October 1939, Page 8

BOARD REMOVED

A SYDNEY HOSPITAL

ISSUE OF PUBLIC INQUIRY

SECRETARY ALSCK

(From "The Post's* Representative.)

SYDNEY, October 19,

The board of the Royal North Shore Hospital, the third largest in Sydney, and its secretary have been removed from office by the Minister of Health,

Mr. FitzSimons, following the report of a commissioner who conducted a public inquiry lasting four months into the affairs of the hospital. The board

comprised seven members elected by subscribers to the hospital and five appointed by the Government.

The commissioner, Mr. Scobie, Stipendiary Magistrate^ was appointed after complaints of maladministration had been made by the hospital vigilance committee., comprising .certain members of the medical staff, and some of the Government appointees on the boardMr. Scobie was asked to inquire into reasons why. certain honoraries were not reappointed, conduct of board and committee meetings, rjules governing admission of patients,, and relations between the honorary medical staff and tne board.

Mr Scobie found that the removal-of Mr. A. C. Russell from the position of secretary and chief executive officer was necessary in the, interests of the Hospital. Severe criticism of Mr, Russell made during the inquiry, he found, was more than justified. Mr. Russell's actions amounted to a gross fraud upon Mr S.^f ' & th^ 19? 7 Mr.- Russell and the chairman of the H, OSPlt? 1 Board (Mr. A. H. Hirst)-had abetted each other in deliberately withhold ateS. al from the board. Mr Hirst had not acted hoiiestly with his board. His refusal to grant a nursing sister a full inquiry into a dispute between her and the matron was shocking to standards of decency and fair play. There was no evidence that the doctors appointed to succeed twelve dismissed' honorari^s were in any way superior to their predecessors. There was a conspiracy between Mr. Russell and certain directo-s .0 .exclude from the board other directors who favoured medical as opposed to lay control.

Mr. Hirst was-elected to the board in April, 1938, and has been chairman since July of that year. The other elected members are Mr. G. S. Travis (hon ■treasurer), Mr. T. E. Rofe (twenty years on the board), Mrs. J. T. Pattinson is lx years), Mr. H. J. Sainty (eighteen months), Mr, E. D. Lanceley (ten years), and Mr. H. G. Lanceley. The live Government nominees are Judgel A. Thomson (vice-chairman, thirty-four years), Dr. Clarence Read (appointed Apnl, 1038), Mr. Frank' McDowell (appointed August, 1928), Mr. H. Carpeiiter ' (appointed July, 1938), and Mr. J. Darvall Hunt, the last-named being ialso chaiuman of the New South Wales Dental Board. ■ . Mr. Sainty, in outspoken comment, said: "There will be political repercus- * sions. We are fighting the people's battle and the people will have something to say to the Government at thj next election. The Government is being run by the British Medical Association." . v

.'■ Mr.' Rofe announced that he would withdraw from charitable work as a result of the board's removal from office, and added: "The board has been treated most shabbily. I will cancel my will, • which provides for bequests < to charities. My new will will leave nothing to charity. The whole thing is unjust in my case. I am a member of seven hospital boards, and I will resign from them a 11.." , ~ •

Mr. Rofe said he had given more than £30,000 to hospitals, including £8000 to the Royal North Shore Hospital. Ha had endowed seven hospitals with a bed each, in perpetuity, five hospitals with a ward each, and two with one bed each for 36£ years.