FALSE REPORTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 301, 21 December 1933, Page 7

FALSE REPORTS

DEATHS IN HOSPITAL BOGUS TELEPHONE MESSAGES I Per Press Association. | AUCKLAND, Dec. 19The recent perpetration of what was described as a cruel and despicable hoax was revealed at a meeting of the Auckland Hospital Board. A report from the house committee stated that on a recent evening the father of a girl who was a patient in the hospital had received a telephone message stating the girl had died. The message purported to come from tho hospital. The Rev. W. C. Wood, chairman of the committee, said the information had not been sent from tho hospital. It was a definite rule that all deaths had to be reported in writing to responsible officials, and tho notes were recorded in a special book of all messages sent. In this case the report was not given in the form of words employed at the hospital. The father of tho child was not on tho telephone, but the message had been telephoned to a neighbour. Tho father had immediately gone to tho hospital and found his daughter was not dead. Nevertheless both ho and his wife had received a severe shock. Unfortunately this was the second recent occasion on which bogus telephone reports had been sent to relatives of hospital patients. “It is a serious matter,’’ Mr Wo(|d said. “The hospital staff is in no way concerned, but the person sending these messages should not be treated lightly. ’*