Sister Kenny To Meet N.Z. Doctors

Northern Advocate, 15 December 1947, Page 4

Sister Kenny To Meet N.Z. Doctors

AUCKLAND, Mon. (P.A.)—The New Zealand Health Department memorandum to medical practitioners concerning the “Kenny treatment” did not state the true position said Sister Kenny in .an interview today. She was willing to assist the Health Department and doctors, she said, but if the pamphlet represented the official view of the department and medical profession, she could obviously do nothing. The pamphlet states: “Claims made by Miss Kenny and the publicity and support given them in some parts of the United States over a period of time induced the American Medical Association to set up a special committee to investigate and evaluate the Kenny treatment of poliomyelitis.” The committee made a painstaking study of the claims of the Kenny treatment, the pamphlet continued. The committee in its report in general, commented adversely on the claims by Miss Kenny. TREATMENT REVIEWED The committee recognised, however, that the ideas advocated by Sister Kenny had caused specialists to review ’the treatment of polimyelitis and .avoid careless routine procedures. Miss Kenny said today it was stated that this committee visited 16 clinics in six cities.

However, she personally' had no association with them whatsoever. They were never inside a ward in the Kenny Institute at Minneapolis, and this was the only institute in the United States at that time using the treatment or understanding it. Miss Kenny then dealt with other matters in the pamphlet which she claimed were incorrectly stated. She said she had accepted an invitation to meet Health Department officials and doctors in Auckland tomorrow! night. She sincerely described their invitations as “very gracious.” Sister Kenny arrived in Auckland 'yesterday from Sydney and will leave for America on December 23.