WESTLAND.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 82, 9 June 1866, Page 2

WESTLAND.

We extract the following from the West land Observer : — A poor woman named Curtis from Okarita, was taken up to_.Hokitika with a view to gaining admission to the hospital there. She was suffering from severe typhoid fever, and" when, sent up. was perfectly delirious. A number of good Samaritans, always to be found amongst the diggers in such cases, though comparatively rare amongst their rulers, volunteered to carry her in on a, stretcher, and put her on board. On arrival, her husband applied for admission to the hospital authorities — Mr. Sale being the first to be so. appealed to. The answer was that there was no female ward in the hospital, and that no provision whatever for that sex had been made. As a singular stretch of humanity, however, the husband was told that he might place his probably dying wife in the old untenanted hospital, provided he found every necessary for her, medical attendance, etc., etc., at own cost and charges. It is of course only reasonable that every man, when in a position to do so, should bear any expense that sickness or accident might occasion.; but here.was.a case where a human life was in jeopardy, to say the least of it, where the husband had not the means to provide what was needed, and yet the Commissioner — the representative of the Government — actually refuses such aid as was: needed to save life. He is so wedded to red tape, that the. life of a poor but respectable woman, the mother of a family, insane from disease, and apparently near death,, cannot, loosen its bands. Comment on such heartleseness would be vain — the facts speak for themselves. -