DR M'KIBBIN’S CASE

Evening Star, Issue 17927, 24 March 1922, Page 3

DR M'KIBBIN’S CASE

SEVERE REPRIMAND AND PUNISH

MENT

Tho Public Service Commissioner, Mr W. R. Morris, has made inquiry into charges of breaches of the Public Service regulations preferred against Dr Thomas M’Kibbin, medical officer nt health at Auckland, in respect to an interview in tho Auckland newspapers, in which Dr M'Kibbin east certain reflections on the Minister of Public Health, the Hon. C. J. Parr. Tho Public Service Commissioner, in whom disciplinary power is vested, held that the charges wore proved, and has decided (1) that Dr M'Kibbin is to be severely reprimanded and. censured y (2) that bo is to be reduced from the position of medical officer of health at Auckland to that of medical officer of health at Dunedin to) that bis salary is to bo reduced: (4| that ho. is to defray all expenses in connection with his transfer from Auckland to Dunedin, and no allowances are to ba paid; (5) that, in addition, Dr .M'Kibbin is to forfeit his saffiry during the period of his suspension pending inquiry.

[The Minister was taken to task by Dr M'Kibbin as the result of a statement made bv him that ho was investigating a charge of slackness in plague precautions at one port in tho Dominion. The doctor expressed strong indignation at the Minister’s innuendo and tho mariner in winch ho alleged Air Parr had ridden roughshod over the administration slat! in ventilating charges ho had not confirmed from ms department. Proceeding, ho said : _ _ -1? fooling in the matter is that tho Minister might refer such complaints to the medical officer concerned before he fWcredits e\cry officer in tho Dominion unnecessarily by utterances in the public Press. I ice sorry for the Minister. The political situation is acute, and he must consider it; but I deprecate political capital being made of those matters to the discomiituie of tho Minister's own officers. The workof a medical officer of health in New Zealand is difficult enough. Of late ho is only a junior rat-catcher. Until New Zealand possesses a local government hoard, independent of political influence, and a provincial council in Auckland to _ coordinate nil the country' local authorities throughout the province, and until the Auckland City Council has its own medical officer of health and tho Auckland Provincial Council lias its own county medical officer of health, it will be difficult enough with any Minister for successful work to be undertaken. At present the department is in a state of chaos, engendered by fierce political action and scaremongoring, and even if the best county medical officei of health in England held office in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland, lie could not satisfy the demands made upon him.” Replying later to this attack, the Minister said ; “ Dr M'Kibbin’s real grievance is that ho resents the presence at Auckland of his senior officer, Dr Frcngley. who has been placed there at my ro quest to supervise the plague precautions.”]