“THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24723, 27 September 1941, Page 11

“THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS”

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —I view with horror and amazement the suggestion at the Hospital Board meeting that “ field days ” should be held to operate on children for the removal of tonsils and adenoid growths. I would like to know how these “ field days ” are to be managed. Each operation demands special preoperation examination and preparation. Some experts insist on a special blood examination, even to performing blood coagulation tests because of the liability to haemorrhage. Of course, m modern treatment all bleeding points are sutured before the patient is removed from the operating theatre. Secondary haemorrhage, however, may occur, and nurses must attend to each case for a considerable time to ensure the safety of the patient. Have _we enough of these “ highly paid ” specialists to run “field day” manoeuvres of this nature? I doubt it. Have these specialists the time to devote to these “ field day ” special operations, because each case is almost in the category of a major operation. At any rate, it if considered so by the anxious parents of the child. Then there is the special nursing of these cases on these “field day ” manoeuvres. This would demand a large supply of specially trained nurses for the after-operation and recovery treatment. Each operation demands a specially trained nurse. I am sure our Dunedin Hospital has not got the number of nurses for “ field day ” manoeuvres. Further, I do not think we have the accommodation in the Hospital to deal with the number of cases visualised at the Hospital Board meeting, Would each case be treated in bed or cot? Or would the little sufferers be laid out on the tables or floors of the wards and corridors to suffer their recoveries, each case being watched over by a nurse? Or. as it would be a “field day ” function, would the little patients be stretched out on the spacious lawns surrounding ' the children's wards of our HospitaJ while they recovered from their operations? Will the Hospital Board explain? At the present time is it advisable in the interests of the lives of the “little innocents” to have these so-called “field day” operations at all? At the present time we have soldier camps at Wingatui and Forbury. We have also soldiers from other camps coming to Dunedin on leave. We have Burnham bugs and other bugs polluting the atmosphere of Dunedin. In this connection I would remark that epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis has broken out in New Zealand, and there have been many fatal cases. Many authorities are of the opinion that the germ of this terribly fatal disease enters the system by the nose and throat. Soldiers from camps may be carriers. Just imagine. Sir, the awful possibilities of these raw surfaces of throats exposed to the germs of cerebro-spinal meningitis, and this the result of “ field day ” manoeuvres at the Dunedin Hospital! Might I suggest that the Public Health authorities should intervene and protest, and that in the meantime other local treatment of nose and throat should be employed. Finally, as Juvenal, in the fourteenth of his wonderful satires, said, “Maxima debetur puero reverentia,” and may wiser and more experienced counsels prevail!—l am. etc., Medicus.