ST. HELEN'S HOSPITAL.

NZ Truth, Issue 109, 20 July 1907, Page 5

ST. HELEN'S HOSPITAL.

AN OUTBREAK OF SCARLET FEVER.

Evidence of Cruel Neglect.

A Matter for Enquiry.

The utility of a Government Maternity Home, of course, goes without question, and when all things are considered, the public should very properly imagine that the management of a Government Maternity Home would be conducted on such lines as to leave little or any room for the cavilling critic Now, m Wellington, there is a Government Maternity Home, and that is known as the St. Helen's Hospital, which is situated m Rentoul-street, Newtown. At present there is also, raging throughout New Zealand an/epidemic of scarlet fever, and Wellington is receiving its fair share of the diseaseIt is m connection with St Helen's Hospital and a number of cases of scarlet fever that "Truth" wishes to deal, and having put the plain facts before the public, it will be for the public itsel/, or the male portion of it, to decide whether the St. Helen's Maternity Home is a fit and proper place to send wives about to become mothers. Incidentally, of course^ it -might be just as well for th-3 responsible officials to make a few enquiries and decide whether it is the customary thing m a Government Maternity Home to turn out of its door, a mother who has CONTRACTED SCARLET FEVER, the symptoms of which were unmistakeable,. but which the St. Heitn's hospital people seemed to have been m ignorance of, and whioh ignorance m the circumstances amounts to right down criminal negligence, which, if it were confined to a private establishment would cause a lot of fuss and talk of cancellation of certificates, etc. Being a Government concern, and established for the purpose of tiding the wives of the working class over their maternal pains, the St. Helen's Hospital is much availed of,/ and it is just as well, therefore, ,Ihat the worker who proposes to send his wife to this establishment should become acquainted with the facts of a recent incident at this place. Three or four weeks ago, a working man residing at Vorreltown, s?nt Hs wife to the St. Helen's Hospital to be delivered of a child. She went to tho Home healthy enough, but when. the husbandi went to take her away she was suffer i-na; from a severe throat. The husband took his wife home and as she got worse he called m a doctor, who, oh his second visit, pronounced her to be suffering from scarlet fever. This fact was next communicated to the Health Department, and one of the medical officers, learninn- that the woman had come from the St. Helen's Hospital promptly visited, that' establishment and found' that four or five patients were suffering from the same disease. The m other and her child were promptly removed to the Wellington Hosnital., and the father and another child were just as promptly isolated, which, to prevent the spread of the scourge is eminently necessary. No one, of course, can be blamed for the fact that scarlet fever is * flying about. Anybody is liable to catch it, and everybody who ctaches it must necessarily be isolated. That, however, is not what "Truth" wants to draw attention to. What anybody would want to know is how comes it thai; scarlet fever can be raging m A GOVERNMENT MATERNITY HOME, where there are plenty of nurses and doctors who know, or ought to know, scarlet fever 1 when they meet it, and who should be able to detect it . m its earliest stages. Though this woman was m a very high fever, it is said that her temperature was not taken ,once during the time she was there. She could not work when she got home, nor could she eat, and the fact that her condition, her sore throat, always a suspicious circumstance m itself, was, allowed to go unmarked m St. Helen's Hospital is something to justify "Truth to question the kind and careful and skilful treatment that patients are entitled io- If this woman was so neglected, there is little reason for belieyinethat other women are treated with greater consideration. The St. Helen's Hospital has been boomed as a boon >for a class of people whose positions m life does not permit Ibem to have the best doctor m the land, or the most skilful nurse m the city m constant attention for . a few weeks. The St. Helen's Hospital is regarded as Iho maternity home for the masses. It 'is not very expensive, though the doctors are said to be skilled, and the nurses are thoroughly trained. So they may be, but if patients are allowed to contract scarlet fever while m the Home, and the fact that they are scarlet fever victims is unknown to the doctors and the nurses then all this paper can say is that the St. Helen's Hospital should he shut up, because it has failed to answer its purpose. The husband of this woman is a hard working man, who had put by a few pounds m anticipation of his wife's conf n n ment, . but he was hardly prepared for ANY OTHER CONTINGENCY. Instead of his wife's treatment at St. Helen's proving a boon to him, it has proved to be something else. He has been put to all sorts of expense and alihou'P'h what appears to this paper to be the scandalous neglect of the nurses and doctors at St. Helen's Hospital. In drawing attention to this matter "Truth hopes that there will be no repetition of its kind. The fact of the St. Helen's Hospital being a Government concern is a sort of guarantee that the treatmenrb will be of the best, and that its manngernent will be all that is desiraible. The St. Helen's Hospital seems to be an exception to the rule.