Memorabilia highlights Whangarei hospital's 100th

By ANGELA GREGORY

WHANGAREI - A Whangarei doctor is worried that tonsil guillotines, eye gougers and stomach retractors might give his profession a bad name.

But rather than consign some of these gruesome tools of the medical trade to hospital bins, Dr John Sweeney has for the past 25 years gone out of his way to preserve such memorabilia.

Dr Sweeney has stashed away thousands of pieces of old medical equipment, storing them in whatever empty space Whangarei Hospital will give him.

Most of the equipment now fills three rooms in a small building that was once the cook's cottage.

Last month work began on sorting and cataloguing the equipment so it can be displayed during the hospital's centenary next year.

The most interesting and eye-catching items will be on show in city shops to highlight the 100th birthday on April 1.

Dr Sweeney can only explain his motivation for the collection, thought to be the biggest of its kind in New Zealand, as a strong dislike of waste.

"I just can't bear seeing anything thrown out," he said.

The senior hospital anaesthetist is clearly knowledgeable and passionate about even the smallest items he has tucked away.

Fascinated by the old tools, he barely puts one down before pulling out another and explaining its use.

Dr Sweeney points to silk worm threads, and packets of needles used for stitches.

Their significance? "Now the needles come already threaded."

To a lay person such items - if not most of the redundant equipment - look no less strange than their modern-day equivalents.

But others, including the tonsil guillotines, an eye spud and gouger, and a stomach retractor with extra wide blades for the "corpulent person," hold a gory fascination.

He is good-humouredly wary that the most shock-horror pieces may be glorified for the sake of publicity.

"The medical profession has already been getting enough of a hard time of it," he said.

Dr Sweeney has, meanwhile, ensured that his own imminent end of tenure after 25 years at Whangarei Hospital does not spell redundancy, with plans to continue in private practice.

The 59-year-old thought it appropriate to choose his birthday, July 4, as his last day of public hospital work.

"It will be my independence day."