["The Island Hospitals", The Sunday Times (Perth, WA), Sunday 20 October 1912, First Section page 9]
THE ISLAND HOSPITALS
AN OFFICIAL IMBROGLIO
Which Necessitates Inquiry.
There is trouble at the Dorre, Island Lock Hospital, where the natives of the North-West who have become infected with the red plague are isolated, treated and cured. But the imbroglio is not connected with the aborigines. It is amongst the staff which is not numerous, and comprises a doctor, a couple of nurses, and several domestics or assistants. The nature of the trouble is a dark official secret. When you ask Bureaucracy about it the Bureaucracy winks and shakes its head. But whatever the disturbance is it is sufficiently serious for the Colonial Secretary to consider the advisableness of having a special inquiry, and he informed our representative yesterday that a commissioner would be appointed shortly.
At the present moment Dr. Hope is on the island for the purpose of taking the institution over on behalf of the Health Department. Hitherto, the Lock Hospitals on Dorre and Bernier Islands have been under the Protector cf Aborigines, but it has been decided by Cabinet that they shall be transferred to their natural place with the rest of the health institutions of the State. Furthermore, it has been the practice to isolate lepers on a small, barren, desolate island adjacent, and Hon. Minister Angwin, who controls Health matters, has instructed Dr. Hope to see if the unfortunates cannot be accommodated on some part of Dorre Island, yet well removed from the other patients.
Whether Dr. Hope, being there, will be deputed to inquire into the staff affair we do not know. If not, another high official will be sent up.
