HOSPITAL DEATHS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19108, 29 February 1924, Page 6

HOSPITAL DEATHS.

THE AUCKLAND GASES. FURTHER EVIDENCE. (Pee United Reese Association.) AUCKLAND, February 28. Th© inquiry by the Royal Commission into the recent deaths of live mothers in various Auckland hospitals was continued to-day. .. Dr Carrick Robertson gave evidence regarding some small contact with two of the cases under review. Describing the case admitted to the Mater Misencordia Hospital, he said that the whole case seemed to one of prior infection, quite independent of the hospital and the medicat men attending at the time of the confinement. ~ The examination of Dr Mac Gill was resumed. Asked whether he considered removal of the patients from Kelvin Hospital and disinfection met the case, witness asked: What more could bo done'; He added that ordinary precautions bad been taken. Asked whether the_ department granted a license to a private hospital and whether the commission might gather that it approved of all hospital conditions, witness replied: “W e must make reservations. There arc many private hospitals that we are not quite satisfied with.” He said he was of the opinion that the high mortality rate at Kelvin Hospital in the period under renew was largely due to the prevalence of influenza. Amelia Bagley, assistant inspector of hospitals at Auckland, said that the inspections of hospitals were made annually and were pretty well carried out. They were made more frequently if it were consider'd advisable. In the case of Kelvin Hospital the general conditions had been satisfactory until last year. There was no record of puerperal septicemia at the hospital. The inquiry was adjourned.