MEDICAL COUNCIL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20815, 25 August 1937, Page 8

MEDICAL COUNCIL

REFUSAL TO REGISTER PRACTITIONER DEATH CANCELS APPEAL By Telegraph —Press Association WELLINGTON, August 24. An application by way of appeal to the Supreme Court against the decision of the Medical Council of New Zealand not to place the name of Dr. Kenneth Entwisle Bury on the register of medical practitioners in the Dominion was withdrawn in the Supreme Court because of the death of Dr. Bury in the Christchurch Public Hospital on August 12 after he was found unconscious in his cabin on the steamer express Maori. Dr. Bury was dismissed from the position of resident medical officer in the Chatham Islands and his temporary certificate of registration was cancelled. The money necessary to bring the Supreme Court action was provided by the islanders, practically all of whom petitioned to have him retained, the natives sending a petition to the Governor-General.

Dr. Bury, who had been practising in London since 1920, arrived at Wellington in 1936, and was appointed by the North Canterbury Hospital Board to a position in the Chatham Islands. He was granted a, provisional certifi-' cate of registration for three months, at the expiry of which it was renewed for a further three months. Dr. Bury boarded the Tea; at the Chathams suddenly and when the boat was under way his request that he be put ashore was refused, and he was taken to Lyttelton. The agent of the North Canterbury Hospital Board telegraphed for a successor and one was sent, but Dr. Bury returned by the next boat. The Board suspended Dr. Bury on March 11, and dismissed him by telegram on March 30 because “reports disclosed conduct of a very unsatisfactory nature.” The Medical Council cancelled Dr. Bury’s provisional certificate and refused to place him on the New Zealand Register. A firm of solicitors in Wellington asked the Medical Council for reconsideration of its decision on the grounds that Dr. Bury had had no information whatever of any charges and the whole population of the islands appeared to be in his favour, that the agent of the North Canterbury Hospital Board had not been asked to report, and that the Medical Council appeared to have acted on the ex parte statements of two persons. The Medical Council, however, refused to alter its decision.