DR JAMES Killoch Anderson, OBE, former medical superintendent at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, has died aged 79.
He was one of the last of the generation of avuncular doctors and formidable matrons who presided over hospitals, with managers taking a humbler and lower profile.
Consultants had pretty much sole responsibility for the clinical care of their patients and the superintendent would step in when something had gone wrong or when there were disciplinary or ethical matters to resolve.
Killoch Anderson was also the voice of the Royal when the media had to be dealt with.
These were the days before out-patient waiting lists, when the doors at the Royal opened each morning to whoever happened to be there with a note from their GP. In-patient turnover was lower and they tended to stay for longer.
Dr Bill Anderson - Medical Director of the North Glasgow Trust - was a student and junior doctor under his namesake. He recalls: ''He was held in a great deal of respect and a lot of awe. Most clinicians probably came across him infrequently - if you became involved with him you knew there was something seriously amiss. If I had been asked to see him I would be shaking in my shoes, wondering what I had done wrong.
''In those days a hospital was pretty much a building in which clinicians carried on their trade. Decisions as to what happened to patients were nothing to do with management. Their job, it was said, was to pay the bills and make sure the drains worked.''
Killoch Anderson's retiral coincided with the advent of the general manager and, later, the trusts, when a more corporate responsibility took shape. But the current controversy over the disposition of Glasgow's hospital services would have been familiar to him. He is not the only
doctor to have joined the NHS, grown old, and died with the future still undecided.
Notwithstanding his forboding image he was a sociable and convivial companion, serving as commandant of the St Andrew's Ambulance Association and as an officer with the Boys' Brigade 95th Glasgow Company in Cathcart.
James Killoch Anderson was born in 1923 and educated at the High School of Glasgow before graduating from Glasgow University in 1945.
He worked as an assistant GP in Motherwell before being called up for National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1948.
Stationed in Gibraltar, he was one of the medical officers who had to respond on April 27, 1951, when the fleet auxiliary ship Bedenham, laden with ammunition, blew up at Admiralty Wharf while unloading torpedoes for the naval base.
A small explosion inside one of the lighters - apparently caused by an unstable depth charge - was followed by a fierce fire, drawing members of the Gibraltar Fire Brigade and dock workers to the scene. When the Bedenham's cargo exploded 10 minutes later, 13 were killed and dozens injured, the wharf was flattened and buildings damaged by flying debris which got as far as a fishing village on the other side of the Rock.
On demob in 1951 Dr Anderson worked briefly as a GP in Rutherglen before joining the Royal Infirmary as deputy medical superintendent. He soon became acting superintendent, as a result of his boss's illness, and the post was made substantive after three years.
He saw the start of the revolution in medical technology, and by the time he retired in 1988 the new phase one block at the Royal was opening its doors.
He had lived in Helensburgh for 30 years and was a member of Helensburgh Golf Club and supporter of Helensburgh Rugby Club. He was also fortunate enough to have been medical officer to Queen's
Park Football Club in 1960, assuring his place at Hampden for the legendary European
Cup Final between Real Madrid and Eintracht.
Dr Anderson is survived by his son and daughter from his marriage to Barbara, who died, and by his second wife, Irene, and their daughter.
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