EVIDENCE HEARD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27387, 12 May 1950, Page 6

EVIDENCE HEARD

Charge Against Doctor SEQUEL TO WOMAN’S DEATH PA HAMILTON, May 11. The case for the Medical Council continued all day in the Supreme Court at Hamilton today before Mr Justice Callan when the hearing of an application to have Francis Clough Blundells name struck off the medical roll continued. Sister Margaret Macrae, joint owner of the San Michele Hospital at Te Awamutu, said that she received no instructions regarding the organs that had been removed in the post-mortem examination of the woman. She said that Dr Blundell had said he told her to save them, but she did not hear him. Witness said the organs in the bowl were burned. Mr Strang asked the witness what evidence she gave to the coroner on this point at the inquest. “ I told him I burnt the specimens,” said witness. Mr Strang: Did you burn them? Witness said she considered it was her fault that the specimens were burnt Sister Kelly had asked her if the doctor wanted them, and witness replied in the negative and told her to burn them Witness said she should not have told Sister Kelly to burn them. When she had asked Dr Blundell why the woman had died he said it was because of uterine inertia. Witness said she received no request from Dr Blundell to destroy the organs. When she told him they had been burnt he seemed “rather cross about it. He then said he had told her to keep them. Witness said she had known cases where Dr Blundell had paid patients’ accounts for them at the hosiptal. In those cases the patients had not been able to afford to pav them. Witness said that Mrs Jenkins had not been entered in the hospital register showing cases. This was because she had died before arriving at the hospital. „, . . . His Honor: Should not the mere fact that the body had been sewn up without the organs have told witness they were wanted for inspection? Witness: Yes, it should. His Honor: Well, why didn’t it? Witness said she realised they should not have been burned. Dr W. R Fea in evidence, stated that in the case of a diagnosis of threatened abortion the patient should be confined to bed. In her oWn hqme would be satisfactory if conditions were ideal. In a case of inevitable abortion, the usual procedure would be to send the patient to hospital If a person were sent home in such a case it should be a home capable of being turned into a miniature hospital, with trained attendants. Dr Fea said that there would be no difficulty in getting a woman from Te Awamutu suffering from inevitable abortion into the Waikato Hospital, as the hospital was compelled to take such cases. The only lawful way for a doctor to bring about an abortion would be where a woman’s life was in danger or in cases of insanity, end only after consultation with another reputable medical practitioner.