Doctors' college defends tardy apology

The head of the doctors' college who apologised for Herb Green's ''unfortunate experiment'' at National Women's Hospital has defended a three-decade delay making it.

''Anything that is perceived as wrong, if you eventually decide to do something about it, it's always going to be viewed as you've waited far too long,'' Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists New Zealand committee chairman Dr Ian Page told the Otago Daily Times.

At the launch of Dr Ron Jones' book Doctors in Denial in Auckland this week, Dr Page apologised to the women and their families.

The book's publication presented an opportunity to make the apology, he said.

The book is Dr Jones' account of trying to raise the alarm at National Women's Hospital. The experiment is thought to have caused more than 30 deaths and led to many unnecessary cancers.

Dr Jones, Dr Bill McIndoe, and Dr Jock McLean wrote an academic paper in 1984 that revealed the harm being done. The whistle-blowers were shunned by many colleagues.

Dr Jones wrote Doctors in Denial in response to a controversial 2009 retelling by Auckland University academic Linda Bryder which tried to recast Prof Green's management of patients as acceptable and progressive.

Dr Jones joined National Women's Hospital in Auckland in 1973 as a junior obstetrician and gynaecologist, seven years after the experiment began.

Prof Green was trying to prove that carcinoma in situ of the cervix was not a precursor of cancer, and did not need to be removed. Dr Page said doctors at that time viewed patients differently and did not always put them first.

They were ''just patients,'' whereas now they were ''partners.''

The misplaced loyalty continued even after the publication of the damning 1984 paper.

''It was a long time ago, and I really can't guess what people's motives would be for not saying more at the time,'' Dr Page said.

He was confident it could never happen again, but ''never say never.''

Dr Page said society as a whole was less deferential to authority, and there were much greater safeguards in medicine and research.

''The New Zealand Committee of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists [is] sorry for the harm suffered by the women, as well as the effects it had on them and their families, and extends our heartfelt sympathy towards them all,'' Dr Page said at the launch.

Dr Jones had earlier expressed disappointment at the lack of a public apology from the medical profession.

''I just can't believe that they weren't prepared to say 'I'm sorry','' Dr Jones told TVNZ recently. The book was published by Otago University Press.