The Great New Zealand Road Trip: Tauranga woman Frances Denz speaks about being an ‘Unfortunate Experiment’ patient

NZ Herald editor-at-large Shayne Currie is on a two-week road trip to gauge the mood of the nation and meet everyday and notable Kiwis making a difference in their communities and wider world. He speaks today to the young manager of Rotorua’s biggest hotel - who started out washing the dishes less than 10 years ago. We also have Nine Questions With... top wedding dress designer Trish Peng, and Tauranga woman Frances Denz speaks to reporter Megan Wilson about being an “Unfortunate Experiment” patient.

A cancer patient of one of the country’s worst medical experiments has spoken out about how eight surgeries in the 1960s and 70s meant she has been in pain “all my life” and unable to work full time.

Tauranga woman Frances Denz says she was treated at the National Women’s Hospital in Auckland at a time when Professor Herbert Green’s study was in operation - which later came to be known as the “Unfortunate Experiment”.

However, “I do not consider myself a victim”, the 80-year-old said.

Speaking from her room at aged care provider Ultimate Care Oakland in Tauranga, Denz says she wants to be recognised for her work rather than her survival.

“I want to be defined by those I have helped and provided the tools for people so they can take control of their own life.”

Tauranga woman Frances Denz said she was a patient of the "Unfortunate Experiment" in the 1960s and 1970s. Photo / Alex Cairns

Denz spent more than 40 years teaching business skills, mostly to people who were disadvantaged, for which she received the Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award in 2013 - something she says is one of her greatest life achievements.

“That was making a difference to people’s lives.”

In 2012, she was also made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to business, which she described as “a bit of a thrill”.

Denz has also published five books and has written four unpublished books.

At age 18, Denz said she was diagnosed with a gynecological cancer.

Between 1961 and 1972, Denz said she had eight surgeries, having two ovaries, two fallopian tubes and her uterus removed.

Denz said she believed she was a patient of the “Unfortunate Experiment” after speaking with people, including a surgeon, and doing her own research.

The study - run by Professor Herbert Green in the 1960s and 70s - followed women with cervical abnormalities but without treating them and without their knowledge or consent.

Senior medical staff at the then National Women’s Hospital in Auckland approved the study. The study was eventually found to have been unethical in an inquiry by Dame Silvia Cartwright held in 1987-1988.

The inquiry uncovered a failure to treat the early stages of cervical cancer for patients in the study and also a failure in doctors’ ethical practices in relation to information-sharing and obtaining informed consent.

In a written statement some 50 years later, the DHB admitted the experiment run by Professor Green led to early deaths.

Having seen fellow cancer patient Clare Matheson’s story on TV, Denz said “it just echoed mine”.

“I’ve always chosen not to publicise all that because doing that would make me a victim.”

She had been on pain medication “all my life” and had not been able to work full time.

“I sometimes think, what could I have done if I’d been fit and well?

“But I’ve learned to work around it.”

Denz said she had been “alone” since she got divorced from her husband at age 30.

After her divorce, she spent some time “living on the streets” in Wellington, “totally destitute”.

Denz said she did not remember how long she was homeless for, having blocked out those “horrible” details.

“I got picked up off the streets by some hippies who took me into their commune and looked after me for a while.”

Fifty years later, Denz said moving to an aged care facility had still been a “shock”.

“It’s like going into a student flat.”

Tauranga woman Frances Denz has written three books since moving to Ultimate Care Oakland almost three years ago. Photo / Alex Cairns

But Denz had still been productive, writing three books since moving to Ultimate Care Oakland almost three years ago.

One was about preparing to move to a rest home and - as a former nurse - another about the changes in nursing in the last 60 years, she said.

She had also written a spy story, which she described as “what happens if we got spies stuck in New Zealand during Covid lockdown”.

Post-election - and having stood for the Act Party in the Bay of Plenty electorate in 2008 - Denz said she was “so relieved we got rid of the Labour Party”.

In her view, “they have been so destructive of society.”

Shayne Currie is travelling the country on the Herald’s Great New Zealand Road Trip. Read the full series here.

One example she gave was “pitting one person against the other” during the Covid lockdowns, where people were asked to report their neighbour if they were breaching it.

“The divide between Māori and Pākehā which wasn’t there before ... and I’m part-Māori so I can wear either hat.”

The Great NZ Road Trip heads from Rotorua to Hamilton, via Tauranga, today.

“We’re no longer an easy-going, friendly, comfortable country filled with relaxed people ... And that is so, so sad and makes me so angry.”

Reflecting on her life today, Denz says her friends and “having a purpose” are the most important things in her life.

“As long as I can be useful and contribute in some sort of way to somebody, then it’s worth fighting.”

Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.