DYING PRISONER RELEASED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15101, 25 March 1911, Page 8

DYING PRISONER RELEASED

A SYDNEY CASE.

A case presenting features similar to some extent to those which attended 0110 which recently elicited some local comment is thus "reported in the Sydney Sun of a recoilt date:—

Tho Attorney-general has beforo him at present, a lile 0! reports and oilier papers connected with tlie case of James Donald Kelly, who was discovered to be in tho last stages of consumption wliilo a prisoner at Darlin.ghurnt Gaol. Tho critical nature of tho case was discovered by Mr Macfarlane, Comptroller-general of Prjsons, during an inspection of tlio -gaol. Tlie man was released from tho gaol and removed _t-o tho liospico for tho Dying, where ho died shortly after. Since .his acceptance of tho offieo of Atl-oniey-general Mr Ilolman has been closely inquiring into a- number of questions of gaol administration, and tho Kelly case is ono that ho lias followed up very closely, What Mr Holmau wants to know is, " Why did not. the system ensure that tlie...attention of the Comptroller-general and-the Minister should be drawn to such a case beforo tho prisoner got- into such a condition as to make his recovery hopeless?'' Willi the papers now beforo him, Mr ilolir.an is considering how the. system mav be improved. The papers disclose that Kelly was sentenced in November, 1908, to two concurrent terms of lour years' penal servitude on charges of housebreaking and stealing. 111 due courso he was temporarily lodged in Darlinghurst, removed thence to Ooulburn, and later to Parramatfa. for " classification." When at PiU'ra-matta _Dr V ioletto discovered bis - seriors condition, and had him transferred to Darlinghurst, whenoo he was taken to the Hospice for the Dying on December 12 ; 1910, and where he died on January .24, 1911. Dr Violette, in reporting on tho caso when Kelly was transferred to Darlinghurst, pointed out that ''owing to his condition benefit would only bo„ obtained in one of the institutions established for the treatment of such diseases," and Dr Palmer, visiting surgeon- at. Darlinghurst, adds: "The latter opinion is probably correct., although it k pcssible that Kelly's condition was even then incurable. . 11l similar cases t'ho visiting surgeon' has always been -nforniod that conditions in other gaols are not suitable for Iho treatment of serious cases of any illness, and -I' bolieve such cases are almost, invariably scut to this hopital." (This last remark is apropos a question by the Attorney:-;! eneral as to why the prisoner was not- suit to a country gntfl, wliero the climate would he hotter suited to tho treatment of consumption.)

Ti'.o trouble sooms to have arisen from an apparent slackness in Goulburn Gaol, but there aro no records of the case, in that, prisoner and file tr.edieal officer concerned since died.

There appears to be nothing in the present system to require that attention rfiould be called to t.ho dangerous illness of prisoners, and Dr Palmer reported that "it is not- usual for the visiting surgeon to report further 011 a ease received from another .Efr.o! unlr.'s the patient has recovered or is about, to die."

When the Comptroller-general noticed Kelly's condition ho at. once callcd for a medical renorf, and upon receiving it. recommended iho release of the prisoner on license. That was at once aoproved, but a recommendation that the lioc.iifo should only bo for Iho County of Cumberland attracted Mr Ilolman's notice, and as a. result of l-'r" inquiries which be. at. or.co set on foot Kelly was taken to tho- hospice, Dr Palmer reporting at the time in favour of snob a course, and adding: "Should bo improve at all, which is extremely doubtful, ho could then bo removed to a consumptive hospital. He is. not at proSent fit to Ik moved any distance:"