The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1929 HOSPITAL BOARD’S FOLLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 641, 18 April 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1929 HOSPITAL BOARD’S FOLLY

rIEKE is need of a drastic revision of policy in the expansive work of the Auckland Hospital Board. Within a score of years the administration has developed one of the largest general hospitals in the British Empire, and yet it cannot cope with a meagre outbreak of mild influenza. In order to provide adequate and reasonably isolated hospital attention for twenty-five stricken sailors the board, in blushing impulsiveness, had to acquire and adapt a private residence for the purposes of emergency and mercy. And then the slack administrators did the right thing only after having been inspired to a belated practice of its duty by the spontaneous generosity of the King’s wise representative in the Dominion. Of course, it must be put to the board’s credit that, having at last recognised its responsibility and duty, it discharged both with admirable quickness and efficiency. Beyond a doubt it has saved the lives of sailors who would have had hut a miserable chance of recovery in a niggard space in the Maui Pomare. Moreover, and better still, the hoard was taught a sharp lesson which has been learnt appreciably by complacent administrators. Whether or no that serious lesson will be utilised to the best advantage is, however, still a doubtful question. The hoard yesterday confirmed such doubt, and the manner of confirmation ran very close to folly. It was decided in an atmosphere of dubiety to call tenders for the construction of two-storey and four-Storey buildings as an infectious diseases hospital on a site in the board’s cluttered grounds on the upper ridge ’of the Domain slope, within a stone-throw from the main hospital, and practically in the centre of the city. Every observer who has looked at the preparation of the foundational area for the projected block has said in the plainest terms of condemnation exactly what the responsible administrators themselves think in their own minds and say with discreet restraint. This fact was disclosed even in the guarded discussion yesterday about it. The leading administrator, who, because of his wide experience and splendid work for the community in respect of providing hospital service, is virtually the hoard in respect of its developmental policy, confessed a lurking doubt on the vital question. Mr. W. Wallace admitted that he was not sure whether it would not he better to proceed with the erection of a two-storey block in the hospital ground and later erect a separate hospital for infectious diseases elsewhere in the hoard’s district. That admission in itself should have stayed the hands or balanced the heads of the hoard, but the chairman, obviously less strongly on guard against external opposition, proceeded to provide the most serious reason why a hospital for the treatment of infectious diseases should not he erected near the main hospital block at all. He reminded his colleagues that, in any case, they would have to provide accommodation for nurses who should have no communication with nurses in other wards. Of course not, hut that potentially dangerous communication goes on now and, according to Mr. Wallace who ought to know, already has been actually dangerous. “It was through nurses going out from infectious diseases wards that infection was spread, and he knew of such nurses who had visited friends in various parts of the city. They-were undoubtedly potential germ-carriers, and liable to spread disease.” That is bad enough and, indeed, extremely bad, but when the public has been told officially in addition that cases of cross-infection have occurred in the existing hospital because of makeshift accommodation and muddled overcrowding —that, in other words, a child suffering from chicken-pox may contract a worse disease in hospital-—-even an apathetic public should demand a better system of isolation. The chairman’s reminder of danger from canned infection apparently passed through or over the heads of board members. They decided in a sort of wisdom that must be unique to go on with their project of littering the hospital grounds with another expensive block and, if possible, to make that block as big as their foolishness. Finally, with the queerest kind of lulling logic, they agreed that, if the Department of Health rejected the board’s demands, the responsibility for a scandalous lack of isolated hospital accommodation would be thrust upon the department. Members of the board must be super-optimists if they really anticipate departmental approval of their folly. By the way, does the medical profession support the dumping of an infectious diseases centre in the heart of an expanding community? If it does, its own literature is filled with expert nonsense about the necessity for perfect isolation of infectious disease.

ANZAC DAY SERVICES

FOE every scarlet poppy sold in the streets to-morrow a host of poignant memories will gather. Out of the company of shadows will emerge the lost flower of a country’s manhood. Fourteen years ago—how short a space it seems, and yet how far away in the mists of time—these April days were days of valour and uncertainty, of glory and sharp sadness; and though the clamour of war has died away, the solemn company of memories still hovers in the background, and in the footsteps of tragedy the sense of loss remains undimmed. Just as Poppy Day with its symbolic blossoms is the means of gathering some slight material tribute in the behalf of those who suffered, so Anzae Day is primarily set apart as a spiritual tribute. Part of its significance lies in the expression of the country s everlasting regard, hut it is a regard too firm and sacred to require the support of pompous formality. Greater still is the significance of the occasion through the tribute paid to the fortitude of those who mourn for men who lost their lives overseas.

Yet there is a danger that Anzac Day may become rather too sombre and formal, too much of an occasion for prepared eloquence and organised display. The poignant memories have been burdened too often with the unutterable tediousness of long and dreary programmes. The tendency is to elevate the speeches and the speakers above the solemn memories and the mothers, wives, relatives and comrades for whom their meaning is most acute. Sir Charles Fergusson, by drawing attention to this trend, has done us a good service. The tedium and actual physical weariness that the present system often imposes upon at least a proportion of the participants naturally blurs, in their perceptions, the magnificent associations of the moment. The example quoted by the GovernorGeneral of the brief but impressive service at the London Cenotaph is worth the serious study of those whose duty it is to organise the ceremonies. Profound gloom during the whole of Anzac Day is not enjoined. Pride and sorrow may take their places in true proportion. It really says a lot for Auckland’s reverent spirit that the proper atmosphere has in the past been preserved with a collapsible wooden cenotaph, shifted, along with the memory-laden sheaves of flowers, within a few hours of the conclusion of the service.