PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18222, 5 November 1924, Page 11

PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

! DR. BEGG'S CRITICISM. LETTER TO MINISTER OF HEALTH. (rKEfS AS3OCIATIOIC TELEGBMI.) WELLINGTON, November J. Dr. U. Ounpbell Bcgg, secretary of the New Zealand Branch of the British Medical Association, has written to Sir Maui Pomare (Minister of Health) regretting that his evidence at Pamicrston North should have been construed as a complaint a.g;unst tho Health Department. What ho said was that in many eases, according to the highest standard of modern requirements, the hospitals were inefficient. That was .vh;:t he believed to be tho truth, but. at the same time it was far from, hist mind to decry our hospitals in comparison with those of other countries, with wliich, he thought, they would compare favourable.

Dr. Bcg£: then proceeds to set out his reasons at length and to elaborate arguments for the improvement of hospitals generally. The platform of tho B.M.A. for any such scheme is as follows: . (1) Absence of any possibility of political control,, local or general. (-) Reduction of expenditure to an amount that will not imposo an excessive- burden en the State.

(3) Availability of hospitals for all under conditions«that will lifeguard tho taxpayer and the profession. (1) Organisation that will utilise all the best medical and surgical talent in the country and give facilities for the advance oi medical science.

(o) That all this talent should not be used only for the treatment of individuals but for the progressive improvement of the hospitals.