URGENCY ONLY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20077, 25 October 1939, Page 6

URGENCY ONLY

TOI. AG A ADMISSIONS MATERNITY TREATMENT CASES FROM THE WAIAPU Strong support for a system of exchange of authorities by hospital boards in respect of the admission of patients from other districts was voiced at the monthly meeting of the Cook Hospital Board yesterday afternoon, when it was decided that as a step towards limiting the use of district hospital facilities by "foreign” cases, the sister in charge at Tolaga Bay should be instructed to refuse admittance to maternity cases from Tokomaru Bay and northward.

The subject was brought up in a letter from the Director-General of Health, Dr. M. H. Watt, who reminded the board that the repeal of a portion of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Institutions Act, 1926, had affected the right of a board to claim, under section 92 of that Act, from another board the cost of relief granted to a resident of that board’s district. The right of the patient to claim admission was no longer restricted to cabes where the board’s consent was given, or where the relief was urgently required. The repeal of the sub-section, it was believed by ihe Health Department, avoided a recurrence of cases where admission to hospital for necessary treatment has been delayed owing to the board’s inability to secure the consent of the board of whose district the patient might be a resident. General Admission Difficulties The chairman, Mr. M. T. Trafford, referred to the right of the board to refuse to accept patients coming direct from areas where similar facilities were available. He instanced the case of' Tolaga Bay, where cases from rokomaru Bay and northward were requesting admission, as a result of the popularity of the sister in charge. These cases were able to get the same facilities in the Waiapu Hospital Board’s district, and he thought they should not be admitted at Tolaga Bay unless they were urgently in need of attention.

The board endorsed the chairman’s view on that point, and discussed the liifficulties which would arise from ;he granting of general admission without ’authority from boards in whose districts patients were domi;iled. The board realised that it night save as much as It would lose >y the repeal of the sub-section, but t was unanimous in the belief that, except in urgent cases, or cases iff vhich suitable facilities were noi available in their own hospital disricts, sick people should be dealt with in their own public hospitals. . It was pointed out, however, that .he repeal of the sub-section had relieved” part of the control previously exercised by 'hospital boards, and hat there was now nothing to prevent i sick person from entering any hospital where he could secure admission.