THE HOSPITAL TROUBLE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7013, 31 January 1901, Page 2

THE HOSPITAL TROUBLE.

The Christchurch Hospital Board possesses an .abnormally-deveiop.ed faculty for getting trouble. Scarcely has it emerged from one .squabble than it is in the throes of another. . Its latest qua.rr.el was made public yesterday. The difficulty arose out. of a differeiaee, of opinion between the Chairman of the Board and the honorary medical staff of the hospital with reference to the appointment of a specialist to treat women's diseases in the out-patient. department. The Board desired to create a department for the purpose of treating such, diseases,, and the medical staff seems to have objected, for. various reasons, and to have pointed out •that it-should have been consulted before steps were take to create a department of •this character. . The correspondence Avhich paesed between the Chairman of the Board and the medical staff was certainly 'not- calculated to conciliate the conflicting' parties, and ultimately the whole question was reopened by the Board yesterday, * when a resolution which it passed 1 at a previous meeting appointing an honoraiy-.surgeon for the treatment of abdominal diseases in women, was rescinded. To the onlooker the affair seems unfortunate, as well as unnecessary. The Chairman is to blame, of course, for having put forward his private opinions as bearing tie official approval of the Board, and the honorary • medical staff seems to have allowed considerations of professional etiquette to outweigh those of progress. Ab matters stand at present, there iis a. danger that the Board will lose- the services of Dr Campbell, the gentleman who was to' have controlled ". the department -which it was proposed to create, simply on account of a squabble which the display of a very little tact might !have averted. ,