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The Press
May 21 2004
Shipley told no need for inquiry into camp
NZPA
Associate Health
Minister Ruth Dyson yesterday said she was unsure why a case had never been
pursued by the Medical Council over legations of sexual abuse, at Glenelg
Health Camp in Christchurch.
The alleged abuse was again the subject of questions in Parliament yesterday
after ACT MP Deborah Coddington last week claimed young girls were sexually
Abused at the health camp by a woman medical officer who then accused their
fathers of the offences.
Coddington last week told Parliament the health officer had repeatedly
examined three girls who had gone to the health camp in 1987 in a way that
could only be described as "sexual abuse".
She had inserted swabs into their vaginas, which she had also measured with
tape measures.
"She kept saying to these little girls this is what your fathers do to
you, isn't it."
Dyson told Parliament last week that an independent ministerial inquiry was
not held into the allegations because of insufficient evidence.
She said yesterday that then health minister Jenny Shipley first became aware
of allegation of medical examination of children without parental consent at
the Glenelg Health Camp in September 1993.
In a letter dated September 27, 1993, then associate health minister
Katherine O’Regan advised Shipley that the Parents Against Injustice Society
New Zealand had asked her to conduct a ministerial inquiry "but said she
believed there were insufficient grounds to initiate such an inquiry at that
time,”
National MP Katherine Rich yesterday asked if the former social welfare
department or its minister had considered any official or unofficial
recommendations to investigate the ethics of carrying out internal
examinations of children without parental consent.
Dyson said that despite extensive searching of records she could find nothing
like that.
She understood none of the young people were in the care of the State at the
time of the alleged abuse.
They went into the care of the State when the allegations were levelled at
their fathers. That was not confirmed after a police investigation.
"If I was the family or any of the individual people involved, I would
take a case to the Medical Council as was recommended in 1993 and I'm really
unsure why that was never proceeded with," Dyson said.
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