The Wellington Hospital Inquiry.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1730, 7 September 1885, Page 2

The Wellington Hospital Inquiry.

Country settlers must certainly desire that the Wellington Hospital should be properly managed, and that the treatment of patients in it should be of the best kind, because although our local hospitals meet ordinary requirements, yet special cases of accident or disease sometimes require to be sent to the colonial institution at Wellington. From the evidence being taken at the Wellington Hospital inquiry, it is clear that the institution in question during the regime of Dr Maurice Chilton has been very badly managed indeed. Dr Chilton, the supremo head of the institution, appears to have been generally in a state of “ chronic alcoholism,” which means that this “ medico ” of the old “ Bob Sawyer and Benjamin Allen ” type was always “ nipping” and had a system saturated with alcohol. Then the Doctor sometimes had a special “ hurst ” besides and so got very bad indeed This is simply a hard, bald fact. Dr Grnbham, the Inspector of Hospitals, stated on oath before the Commission: —“About the 19th of January he found Dr Chilton suffering from chronic alcoholism, and ha informed him of the fact, and warned him that if he did not not reform he would find himself in the asylum. Ho had never seen Dr Chilton intoxicated, hut judging from the state of his suffering it was not safe to retain him as medical officer, and he told the Colonial Secretary so.” Then Miss Marsden, the Lady Superintendent of the Hospital, deposed on oath “ that Dr Chilton had been the worse of liquor in her presence and hud admitted the fact.” This gay and festive medico appears to have had a good time of it while iu charge of the Hospital. He constantly took some of the pretty girl nurses out to picnics and boating excursions, and was often absent from the Hospital for hours together, though critical cases awaited his attention. With such an amatory bibulous gentleman at the head of affairs at the Wellington Hospital, it must have been by no means the right place for sick and suffering people to expect careful nursing and proper medical treatment in. The question arises Why did the Government keep the man Chilton so long in a position for which he was utterly unfit ?