patients.

Instead, journalist Mr. Bryan Darby will be helping to heal the hospital's image.

Mr. Darby, a VSB reporter, already does publicity work for Dockyard on behalf of Wedco.

His new job will be to suggest ways of improving coverage of King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

He will also advise staff on promoting a "positive'' image, and help the hospital handle reporters during a crisis.

Mr. Darby said Mr. Hume Martin, executive director of the hospitals board, was doing a good job responding to the media.

But he added: "They have had a very bad Press year, to the point where the morale in the hospital is low.

"That worries Hume, I think, more than his Press. Something has got to be done about it because you can't run a hospital with low morale and low esteem.'' Negative stories kept cropping up, making staff despair, said Mr. Darby.

"There is a certain feeling of a lack of appreciation.'' Hospital workers had treated him after he had a heart problem and "almost popped off''.

They had also saved his son after he nearly drowned aged 18 months. "I think it's a fine hospital,'' he said.

He would be a "media consultant'', paid by the hour, in an advisory role. He would not be a hospital spokesman or have an office in the building. PHOTO Mr.

Bryan Darby.