BODY REMOVAL
HOSPITAL BOARD’S REPORT [per press association.] AVELLINGTON, May 28. Following the death in the AVellington Hospital on December 21, 1936, of a male person, and complaints that the body had been sent to the Otago Medical School in Dunedin without the relatives or friends of the man being advised, the chairman (Mr. J. Glover) submitted a special report, to a meeting of the AA r ellington Hospital Board. The report was received without comment.
The report read as follows: —“The body was removed to Dunedin for an anatomatical examination. The man had no relatives in New Zealand, and had no friends so far us the hospital officers then knew. By section 31 of the Medical Act, 1928, provision is made for the examination of such bodies. It was only after the body had been removed to Dunedin that a friend called and it was at once arranged that the body should be returned and buried in a plot in ihe Karori cemetery which the deceased had bought. The friend, though notified, did not. attend the funeral. Mr. A. AV. Croskery was invited to attend upon the committee set up to deal with his complaint, against the hospital officers. He was also invited to state if the date ot the proposed meeting was suitable to him. Mr. Croskery replied that he would not. attend as he had other business. He made- no suggestion that he desired to attend on another date. The committee examined the facts revelant to the whole matter, and finds that there was nothing irregular or im-
proper in the procedure taken. The deceased’s friends, though invited to attend the committee meeting, failed to do so. The funeral charges were not excessive in the opinion of the committee, and were duly authorised by the deceased’s trustee, who, in fact, arranged for the funeral. “It may also be mentioned that the statement that the hospital made a habit of sending bodies to Dunedin for examination can best be answered by the fact that an average of not more than one body a year has been sent in recent years."
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Greymouth Evening Star, 29 May 1937, Page 5
Word Count
352BODY REMOVAL Greymouth Evening Star, 29 May 1937, Page 5
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