APPLICATION FOR ORDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27386, 11 May 1950, Page 8

APPLICATION FOR ORDER

Removal Of Doctor's Name THE MEDICAL REGISTER Infamous Conduct Alleged PA HAMILTON, May 10. The Supreme Court at Hamilton was occupied all day in hearing evidence in a case in which the Medical Council of New Zealand sought an order to have the name of Francis Clough Blundell removed from the Medical Register on the grounds of alleged infamous conduct in a professional respect. The case is likely to continue over three days. Mr F. J. Strang, for the Medical Council, said the action followed the death of Mrs Ngaere Robinson, also known as Jenkins, who died on July 21, 1949. The deceased, who had lived with a man named Jenkins for a number of years, had six children in six years, including twins in December, 1948. When she found she was pregnant again in April, 1950, she took pills and in Jub r went to see Dr Blundell.

Mr Strang said it would be shown in evidence that Dr Blundell took the woman to a home in the country where there was no registered nurse and where she haemorrhaged, and she died when being admitted to the Te Awamutu Hospital. Dr Blundell then cut the woman open to find out, he said, the cause of death. It was very significant and most unfortunate, said Mr Strang, that vital organs which had been removed to a basin, the doctor said, for examination by a pathologist, were in fact never seen by the pathologist because they had been burned in the kitchen fire. Blundel had done whatever he did without fee, and undertook the responsibility for wreaths and funeral expenses, added Mr Strang. The funeral arrangements were carried out with celerity. Notice was given the undertakers early in the morning for burial at 2.30 p.m. on the same day as she died. Jenkins had complained to the police on the day after the funeral. It would be submitted, said Mr Strang, that Dr Blundell gave false e-idence concerning the death certificates. The police took steps for an exhumation on July 28 and a postmortem was conducted by a pathologist who was unable to determine the cause of death as parts of the body were missing. Harold Francis James Jenkins, under cross-examination from Mr North, said that a letter had been sent by his lawyers claiming £SOOO damages from Dr Blundell. He made the claim on behalf of his children. He had not seen the letter the solicitors wrote. . , , " Have you got the £ 5000? ’ asked his Honor. “No, Sir,” replied witness. Witness added that he did not know whether a writ had been issued.