HOSPITAL MATTERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 124, 2 July 1941, Page 4

HOSPITAL MATTERS

Sir,—l notice that cur Whakatane county councillors have discussed the increase in hospital costs and rates. One councillor deplored the fact |that whereas in the' good okl days the Maoris were afraid to enter a hospital now they Hocked to hospital and would not go home. Perhaps that problem can he left to the hospital doctors. Surely the doctors do not allow patients, v. hite or brown., to stay in hospital when, there is really nothing wrong with them. If. >n the other hand, the Maori patients are really sick, then tliey had setter be in hospital than in their kiangas. No doubt the hospital staff have ways and means of weeding nit any malingerers. However, it is a sad fact that hospital costs and ccal body hospital levies are going up. I fear this corresponds to the manner in which the food of the people is getting more and more refined and adulterated. The old-time Vlaori eating his shell fish, fern root, ootaoes and kumara steamed in the <.apa Maori, ©tc., and weaving brief but sensible garments, did not rnaka work for hospitals. Nowadays it in different. The Maori is losing his latural physique as a result of eatng the white man's white bread and similar over-refined rubbish, wearng the white man's unhygienic garments, and living in houses that are imitations of those of the white mar and not as comfortable as the old Maori dwellings. I believe that the task of preventing a further influx into hospitals is not a matter of refusing admission to 1 possible malingerers, but rather one of educating people, white and brown, into more sensible ways of «witing, clothing and housing. The State is doing various forms of health propaganda, but it has' a lot of leeways to make up. Perhaps the ultimate solution will be to make the/ homes of the people so comfortable that they will not want to leave home to lie in ft hospital bed. At present it seems more comfortable to be a guest of the State in hospital than to live at home. Yours etc., I. M. PATIENT.