Hospital Board.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18362, 21 April 1925, Page 8

Hospital Board.

There was more than the ordinary justification for the resolutions in which the members of the Hospital Board yesterday congratulated the public, the stafr', and one another on the result of the year's work. Everybody knows the importance of tho Board's work, but

it is only now and again that the community is made to realise the magnitude of that work measured in terms either of men or of money, and we do not think many of our readers would deny to-day that the financial record is especially creditable. Merely to show a credit balance may not be an achievement; but to start with a heavy deficit, to maintain and even extend the year's operations, and still end with a credit comfortable enough to justify n remission of rates, is a quite arresting performance by a Board under continual pressure to spend, but with very little moral authority to collect. It is a pleasant thought also that among the developments of the year has been the equipping of the new deep therapy and radium department. Deep therapy treatment sccm3 to have been only a moderate success, though that apparently was expected, but it is very encouraging to have the Medical Superintendent's statement that radium, in certain cases, is producing excellent results. It is to be hoped that the publicity given to this fact will have the effect of bringing sufferers to this department while their affliction is still in a curable stage. One of the problems that the Board has not solved, however, is the selection of an acceptable site for the NurSes' Home. Very properly it dec-lined to discuss this matter further yesterday, but if its discussions iu the past had shown more boldness —and by that wc do not mean a mere contempt for criticism —there would have been nothing now left to consider. It i 3 also one of the anomalies of the present position that delay has been caused by the demand for haste.

But the darkest issue raised at yesterday ?s meeting was that referred to by Dr. Fox in his report 011 the genitourinary department. Dr. Fox did not indulge in any soothing euphemisms, and if we could be as sure of liis method as of his meaning the problem would be comparatively simple. Conditionnl notification has the advantage that it encourages those who are not hopelessly dissolute to present themselves for treatment voluntarily; segregation has the disadvantage that it creates resentment and increases; the difficulty of detection. Yet the particular class .of "carrier" denounced by Dr. Fox is a defiant and lawless class now, and the difficulty about restraining them is less prudential than practical. If the patrol women' find them so hard to identify when libcqfy is not at stake, the task will not be easier when the possible penalty is three or four months' restraint. Dr. Fox's remarks emphasise the need for that comprehensive Social Hygiene Bill that shuuld have followed the report of the Y.D. Commission.