Deaths
BOYLES. — On January 12, at Seacliff (from septic poisoning) removed from St. Helens Hospital, Amelia Mary, dearly-beloved wife of Charlie Boyles, Caversham, aged 38 years. "At rest. -Evening Star, 13/1/1917.
"ACUTE MANIA"
AMELIA MARY BOYLES'S DEATH
REMOVED FROM ST. HELEN'S HOSPITAL TO SEACLIFF ASYLUM
The Constable says She was Cold and Procured a Rug
Deceased's Husband Makes Allegations — Asylum Doctor Says the Deceased was Rational and Grateful
(From "Truth's" Dunedin rep.)
Some time back Amelia Mary Boyles, a married woman, was sent by her husband to St. Helens Hospital, Dunedin, as a maternity case. The child was born on the day following and the mother seemed fairly well when visited by the husband. Eventually, however, the woman, while still very ill, was removed in
AN OPEN MOTOR CAR to Seacliff Mental Asylum, she having, as stated by the Hospital, developed acute mania. The husband alleged on the contrary that there was no need to remove the woman, particularly at such a critical stage in her illness, and he further alleged that in the course of the removal she was insufficiently clad, that her hair was uncovered and matted. Mrs. Boyles died at the Mental Hospital, and at an inquest held by Magistrate Young, Dr Siedeberg and matron and nurses giving evidence.
A general review of the evidence given at the tedious inquiry may be worth perusal.
Constable Seiver said that he received a telephone message from Dr, Siedeberg stating that she was sending along a Mr. Boyles to make an application for the committal of his wife from St. Helen's Hospital to Seacliff Mental Hospital. Dr. Siedeberg and Dr. Ross examined the patient. After the committal when Boyles saw his wife, he said he was not satisfied as to his wife's condition, and would like to call in another doctor. Witness said he would have to obey his instructions. Boyles said there was nothing the matter with his wife and that she merely had windy spasms. It was necessary to carry the patient from the bed to the motor car. This was done by witness and Boyles. Witness asked the matron if the patient was all right physically — was she likely to collapse? The matron said, "No." Nothing was said about dress or blankets. Going along George-Street the patient
COMPLAINED THAT SHE WAS FEELING COLD and witness considered it would be better to get a rug. They went to the North East Valley police station and borrowed a blanket there. Any questions witness asked deceased she answered quite rationally. She seemed to him quite rational. She said she was all right. Her hair had not been dressed and they could not keep her hat on properly. Whatever conversation there was was quite rational on the patient's part.
To Mr. Boyles: The patient was quite rational. Witness refused to allow Boyles to sit beside his wife on the journey for the reason that he did not know whether she might be violent or not.
Charles Boyles, confectioner, said that when he first visited his wife at St. Helen's she seemed to be fairly well. She said that at times she felt rather cold. She said also that she was disturbed because of babies being allowed to cry in the ward. When once a baby commenced to cry, she said, it was allowed to cry itself out. When next he saw her she had been moved to the isolation building and was looking rather ill and nervous. Next day he saw her again and she was looking poorly indeed; she appeared as if she was going to have a nervous breakdown. The room was very draughty. There was a door leading into another room which was open, and this door was continually banging and squeaking. His wife complained that she had rheumatics and also sciatica in the right leg. Her eyes were running and she was suffering from cold or Influenza. His wife also complained that for the second time that afternoon the matron had asked her about a name for the baby. Witness informed her that he would see the matron and tell her that the matter which immediately concerned her was his wife's health and not the baby's name. His wife begged him not to say anything to the matron. She said, "You don't know
HOW HORRID SHE CAN BE; she will make me suffer if you speak to her." When witness visited the hospital — at the request of the matron — he found his wife asleep. He was informed that she was under the Influence of morphia. Witness stayed at the hospital all night and injections of morphia were continued at intervals all night. He was told that it would be necessary to see a magistrate to have his wife committed to the Mental Hospital. He was told this course would be necessary. He went to the court and found Dr. Siedeberg. After filling in some particulars he returned to the hospital and found his wife awake and quite restored. She was eating an orange. The magistrate arrived some minutes after, and the questions asked her then she answered quite rationally. A quarter of an hour later witness suggested to the matron that as she seemed quite rational now it would be unnecessary to remove her to such a distant place as Seacliff. The matron said she would have to be removed from there — that she had no time to attend to such cases; that they had no facilities, and that their hands were quite full enough already. The patient would have to be removed as soon as possible. Witness then said he would call in another doctor, but the matron replied that he could not bring in another doctor without the consent of Dr. Siedeberg, who was in charge of the hospital. When they were all standing round the car witness requested that the patient be wrapped up a bit better, but no one seemed to notice. He (witness) would like to place on record that his wife had told him while she was at Seacliff that one of the nurses at St. Helen's had said she could die if she liked; and just prior to leaving St. Helen's she said that the submatron had said she was full of diseases.
Dr. Siedeberg, a female doctor, went into the most minute details in giving her evidence, and was most emphatic all through. In the course of her lengthy details she said that the birth of deceased's baby was a perfectly normal one. A few mornings after her temperature had gone up to 103, and she complained of pains in the lower abdomen, and also of a cold spot on the top of her head; also of pains in the back of the neck and through the body generally. That evening witness rang up Dr. Jolly at the general hospital and asked her to come along next morning and take a blood test for examination. Witness had recognised that some virulent organism was at work and wished to get a culture. The blood culture proved negative. Later, witness found deceased
SUFFERING FROM ACUTE MANIA. It took several nurses to hold the patient down while an injection of hyoscyamine and, morphia was administered. When the patient was under the influence of the morphia, witness rang up the police department and requested the assistance of a constable, but the police authorities could not see their way to supply a constable. Witness and a sister then went down. Mr. Boyles was also in attendance during the night. The hospital people had recognised that before mania had developed that the patient's vitality was low; she was hysterical. After filling in the papers at the court witness went back to St. Helen's, and while there she conducted a Magistrate to the patient.
(The Magistrate who committed the patient to Seacliff Mental Hospital was the same who presided at the inquest.)
Mr. Boyles: Was the anxiety to get rid of the patient due to her physical condition or to her mental condition? Dr. Siedeberg: To her mental condition.
Dr. McKillop, senior medical officer at the Seacliff Mental Hospital, stated that deceased at Seacliff was perfectly rational. She was a good patient and very
GRATEFUL FOR THE ATTENTION GIVEN HER.
Alice Hannah Holford (matron), Mary Jane Gow (sub-matron), and Annie Isabella Hinchey, all of St. Helen's, also gave evidence. Their evidence supported that of Dr. Siedeberg. The Coroner found that everything possible had been done for deceased, the cause of death being septicaemia. -NZ Truth, 3/2/1917.
"ACUTE MANIA"
AMELIA MARY BOYLES'S DEATH
WHY MORE SHOULD BE HEARD OF THE MATTER
Deceased's Husband Supplies "Truth" With Further Particulars
A Demand for a Public Inquiry
In "Truth's" issue of February last, we published a report of the proceedings at an inquest held by Coroner Young, at Dunedin, touching the circumstances, surrounding the death of a married woman named Amelia Mary Boyles, who, after giving birth to a child at the St. Helen's Hospital, Dunedin, was said to have developed symptoms of what was described as "acute mania," and under the most extraordinary circumstances, which rather mildly describes the conditions, she was removed to the Seacliff Mental Hospital, where she subsequently died.
The evidence adduced at the inquest was such that, in "Truth's" opinion, it was necessary to hold a further inquiry, because on the evidence of Constable Seiver, who escorted the unfortunate woman from St. Helen's Hospital to the lunatic asylum, the woman was bundled out of the hospital in scanty night attire, with her hair disheveled, and that on the way to the asylum she
COMPLAINED OF THE COLD, and the constable was obliged to repair to a police station to procure a blanket to make the unfortunate woman warm and comfortable. Not only did the constable give evidence which warranted a further inquiry into the manner in which the; hospital in question is managed, but the husband of the poor woman related stories alleged to have been told him by his wife which warranted Coroner Young insisting on the fullest investigation. Unfortunately the Coroner was the Magistrate who ordered the woman's removal to the Mental Hospital, and in the circumstances "Truth" suggests that the holding of the inquest should have been left to some other Magistrate. Moreover, while the St. Helen's Hospital doctors and nurses alleged that the woman was suffering from acute mania, and had shown signs of being violent, the evidence of a doctor from the Mental Hospital, was to the effect that the
WOMAN WAS QUITE RATIONAL, and what is more was very grateful for the kindness shown her at the Asylum for the Insane.
"Truth" therefore, does not feel disposed to allow the matter to stand where it is, and as the St. Helen's Hospital is under Government control, it Is only right that the Inspector of Hospitals, Dr. Valintine, should call for the whole facts, because on the evidence which has come to light, the death of Mrs. Boyles seems nothing short of a grave scandal.
Mr. C. Boyles, the husband of the deceased writes to "Truth" as follows:
On account of the great public interest aroused by your report of the inquiry into the death of my wife, Amelia Mary Boyles, and the deluge of inquiries for further particulars, perhaps you would be good enough to publish the following few remarks on the matter. In the first place, I was not consulted as to whether I would consent to the deceased
BEING SENT TO SEACLIFF. I was informed that she would have to go. When the committing Magistrate saw the deceased she was quite rational, and he did not ask her any questions directly, and when deceased was removed she was quite sane and remained so until her death, fourteen days later. The authorities at St. Helen's concealed from me the fact that the deceased had contracted septecaemia. I was not aware of her condition until after her arrival at Seacliff. Prior to her admission to St. Helen's Hospital, I believe that another patient had contracted septicaemia, and I am informed that since then another patient has developed septicaemia, and subsequently died in the public hospital. In view of these facts, I ask the public, through your columns, whether it is in the public interest that such facts should be concealed. Who shall say that in allowing my wife to enter St. Helen's I did not practically allow her to go to her doom, and would anyone be so insane as to suggest that had I been aware of the above facts that I would have allowed her to enter St. Helen's at all. Then I would like to point out that although Dr. Siedeberg admitted that
SHE SUSPECTED SEPTICAEMIA on Monday, December 25th, yet she took no steps to definitely ascertain until December 27th, and then only by one test which she admitted was not infallible and which subsequently proved not to be infallible. Her reason, according to her evidence, for not making another test, namely, by means of a swab culture, was that she had not sufficient time before the patient became violent, although that did not happen until four days after, septicaemia. was suspected. Then Dr. Siedeberg stated in her evidence that deceased's vitality was low and that she was hysterical when, as a matter of fact, it is quite well-known that the deceased possessed energy and vitality\to an exceptional degree and that she was never hysterical until she went to St. Helen's. Does it not indicate vitality in an extraordinary degree when deceased fought death for nearly three weeks with a temperature running up to l06 for nearly half that time? With regard to her physical condition, I need only state that although only 5ft. 6in. tall, her weight was over ten stone. With regard to the charge made against the management of St. Helen's by myself, Dr. Siedeberg described those which arose from complaints made by deceased as delusions, but where such complaints were of a general nature they have been borne out by numberless ex-patients of St. Helen's as facts. Where the complaints were the result of my own personal observation, they were sidetracked by Dr. Siedeberg, and ignored by the Coroner, who was the Magistrate who committed deceased to the asylum. Now, Sir, in view of the legal disabilities which follow in the train of a committal to an asylum, and in view of the distance of Seacliff Asylum from Dunedin, and the great inconvenience to friends and relatives who may wish to visit a patient there, to say nothing of the serious financial aspect also, it is the general opinion here that to commit a sane woman under the circumstances revealed by myself at the inquest was
A REGRETTABLE MISTAKE. It has also been pointed out to me that if the deceased had really been in need of mental treatment, that she could have been admitted to Seacliff as a voluntary patient, without committal, but in that case Dr. Siedeberg would not have been entitled to the fee which I have been asked to pay for her services; a fee which, I may say here, will never be paid by me. I may also say here that I am firmly convinced that the depression which was occasioned to the deceased by the knowledge that she had been committed to an asylum militated seriously against her recovery, although the staff at Seacliff treated her with a sympathetic tenderness, which called forth my deepest and most grateful thanks. In fact, the kindness and sympathy which we both received there, was a revelation
IN COMPARISON TO WHAT she had left behind. In conclusion, I wish to say that I have received over 300 communications from unknown people urging me to press for a public Inquiry into the whole question of the management of St. Helen's. I wish to emphasise the fact that the ease with which a person may be committed to an asylum is a matter of very grave and serious public interest. -NZ Truth, 24/2/1917.
It seems that no further action resulted from Mr Boyles' letter.
IN MEMORIAM.
BOYLES. — In affectionate remembrance of Amelia Mary (Milly) Boyles, who died of septicemia after removal from St. Helens Hospital, Dunedin, January 12, 1917. — Inserted by those that loved her. -Otago Daily Times, 12/1/1918.
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