Whangārei Hospital surgeon Bob Mulligan dies at 104

Northland surgeon Bob Mulligan (centre) with Bill Sugrue and Mark Sanders on Mulligan's 100th birthday. Mulligan died last week aged 104.

One of New Zealand's oldest surgeons, Robert "Bob" Mulligan, former surgeon and assistant superintendent at Whangārei Hospital, died last week at 104.

Mulligan lived through significant local and international events, including the amalgamation of Northland's six hospital boards and World War II. He was closely involved in both of these events.

Bill Sugrue, who retired in 2009 and is chairman of the Northland Medical Museum Trust, has been responsible for recording important medical history within the Northland region, and helped provide information for this obituary.

"Bob was born in Canterbury on February 9, 1917. He attended Timaru Boys' High School, worked on a farm for one year near Ashburton then studied at Otago 1937-1940. His last year of medical training was in Auckland in 1941.''

He was firstly a house surgeon in Waikato and Rotorua in 1942-43. Then, between 1944 and 1946, he was seconded as a flight lieutenant medical with the RNZAF and based in Fiji – which is where he met his future wife, Jean, who was a volunteer nurse in Fiji.

''In 1947 Bob went to Northern Wairoa Hospital at Te Kopuru near Dargaville, had a year as a medical officer with Clive Garlick (who became superintendent of Northland Hospital Board). He then went to the UK, where he studied to become a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.''

He returned to New Zealand in 1950 to take up the first appointment with the newly formed Northland Hospital Board as assistant superintendent and fulltime surgeon.

"The board eventually developed Whangārei as a base hospital where patients could be referred to specialists.

"Having gone to England, he brought back awareness of improvements needed in Whangārei Base Hospital.

"Bob Mulligan was on call every second weekend. Being on call was like having no private life."

Bob Mulligan (third from right) with some of his colleagues at Whangārei Hospital.

Conditions were very different in the 1950s for surgeons like Mulligan, with surgeons receiving low pay, being depended on for constant callouts, and covering everything from craniotomies, gynaecology, caesarean sections to urology, without specialists on hand and without the ability to fly specialists in via helicopter. GPs had to administer anaesthetics because there were no specialist anaesthetists.

Mulligan is quoted in the book Whangarei Hospital: a century of service 1901-2001, describing how long it took to bring emergency patients to the hospital with these words:

"Typically, a child would be taken from school to Rawene Hospital in the morning, complaining of abdominal pain and would be examined by a doctor, not a surgeon.

"The doctor would ring round the drivers to find a willing volunteer ambulance driver. Having just finished milking, the volunteer would come straight out after his evening meal – an hour's delay. The hospital would empty out its van, which doubled as an ambulance, fill it with petrol, and make it ready – another half hour's delay.

"Finally, the two vehicles would rendezvous at Kawakawa, where the St John's Ambulance had been waiting for probably an hour and reach Whangārei at 10.30pm. Admission and examination by a house surgeon would take another half hour.

"Calling out the theatre staff and preparing the patient: another half hour – all this for a child developing abdominal pain in the morning," Mulligan wrote in the book.

Bill Sanderson, past board member and DHB surgeon, crossed paths with Bob Mulligan when Sanderson firstly was a young house surgeon in the late 1960s when Mulligan's workload was at its peak, and he then worked with Bob when Bill came back to Whangārei Hospital in 1976 and Mulligan was close to his retirement at age 62.

"One thing that impressed me about Bob was if you got an acute case in the middle of the night, the house surgeon would ring the surgeon. Even at 2am, Bob Mulligan would always come into the hospital dressed in a jacket, shirt and tie. It always amazed me he would dress to that extent. He is the only surgeon I've met that did that,'' Sanderson said.

"I think he had a lovely disposition," Sugrue adds, suggesting this may be the explanation for Mulligan reaching his amazing age.

''We acknowledge Bob's extraordinary contribution to the community and healthcare system in Northland and offer our deepest condolences to the Mulligan family,'' Northland District Health Board said.