HOSPITAL DEATHS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19107, 28 February 1924, Page 8

HOSPITAL DEATHS.

THE AUCKLAND CASES. MEDICAL OFFICER’S EVIDENCE. AN OVERCROWDED DEPARTMENT. (Paii United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, Fooruary 27 The inquiry into the deaths from puerpal septicaemia of hvo mothers in various Auckland hospitals, was continued 10-dav. Dr Hughes. health officer, said that he had no reason to relieve that the missing charts Had been concealed from him. lie made inquiries regarding; all of them, and tounu nothing suspicious, the cases being normal. When ho visited the Kelvin Institution in October it was not understaffed. Tho witness said that Dr APCormick on November 10 reported the case of Mrs Delamore. Witness asked if ho had any cases, and he replied that he had a Mrs Carter, with pneumonia. He discussed the symptoms. Witness thought Dr M’Cormick said something about it being a ■oaso of septicaemia at Kelvin. "W itness was examined at length as to the conditions at Kelvin Hospital and the reasons for delay in investigating after receiving notification of a serious case. He explained that -..s was duo to pressure of work elsewhere and illness. In reply to Sir Donald VFGavin, Dr Hughes said that the structural arrangements at Kelvin Hospital were not ideal for complete the only isolation was to place the patient in a separate room, but there might be normal patients in other rooms across lue narrow passage. Infected linen would also have to be carried through the passages. Sir Donald: Do you regard that as satisfactory isolation? . , ~ Dr Hughes: It is all that is obtainable. What parts of the hospital were disinfected?—The rooms in which the cases occurred.

Is that all?—Yes. . , , Dr Magill, advising medical officer to the Health Department, said that the officers regarded Kelvin Hospital as above the average of private hospitals in accommodation and in general management. A report on every licensed private hospital was made annually, and in some cases more frequently by nurse inspectors. There .were two such inspectors in the Auckland district, in which there were 82 private hospitals, besides a large number of registered midwives, whose work required supervision. The' work in Auckland province was exceptionally heavy, not only because of the large population, but also because the majority of the Native nurses were in the province. After detailing the duties of the medical officer of health, witness said that a detailed supervision of public or private hospitals was physically impossible, and it was still less possible that be should be closely in touch with the work in each pnvate hospital so as to give co-oroinated supervision with the superintendent of the public hospital. It had to be considered whether the absence of co-ordination was not the weak point in all private .hospitals. The recent trouble at. Kelvin Hospital appeared to suggest a lack of such skilled co-ordination. Referring to the fact that the department was the first to feel the pruning knife, witness said that he had been 23 years in the service and could not remember the time when it was not struggling to overtake the work for which the staff was inadequate. The hearing was adjourned.