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Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1234, 12 July 1872, Page 2

The reports read at the annual meeting of subscribers to the Grey River Hospital were so eminently interesting and satisfactory that we prefer to retain them for publication in more perfect form than is possible in any paragraph notice of the meeting, such as we are only able to give in this issue. We may. however, refer to the' more salient satisfactory features of the report presented by the Committee of Management. Last year the retiring Committee had to complain of apparent apathy on the part of the mining community in supporting the institution. This year the Oommittee'3 report presents a pleasing contrast in that respect to the reasonable complaint of their predecessors. Through action taken to secure local aid, and to establish a general system of subscriptions to the funds of the Hospital, the town subscriptions had been increased from L 175 to L 292, while thff subscriptions from the country, from which a majority of the patients also come, increased from L 329 to L 1094. With an increase from L 6to L 46 in the receipts from public entertainments, the total improvement in the amount of voluntary contributions was LB6fr— an .improvement which the committee consider most gratifying in regard to the present, and highly promising as to the future. A comparison of the expenditure, on the other hand, shpfirs an increase of L 379, an increase due to the greater number of patients, to repairs of buildings, and to renewals of the Hospital stores. The number of indoor patients was 245, as compared with 230 m the previous year, involviug an increase also in the number of days in the institution, while the number of out-door patients treated had increased from 438 to 497. From the local Governments the subsidies had been £644, for eleven months, from Westland, and £1018, for twelve months, from Nelson, .£2OO of the grants in aid going towards the erection of a female ward— an urgent and soon to be provided requisite. From the Medical and Surgical Report, interesting though it is in a statistical point of view, we have no space at present to quote more than the few facts that the average daily cost of each patient was 4s lOfd, that the highest number admitted, 32, was in June, 1872, and the lowest, 21, in December, 1871, that the number discharged cured and relieved was 197, while the deaths numbered 16. It is significant of the amount of surgical skill exercised that, there were 38 fractures and dislocations dealt with, and 24 persons treated for wounds and other external injuries. In the nationality of the patients there is scarcely a country in Europe which is not represented, . while those from the Three Kingdoms were— B6 from Ireland, 64 from England, and 26 from Scotland. Most of the occupations are represented by units, or not more than two or three admissions in the year, except sailors 10, and miners 185. The three reports which we have thus briefly noticed are fair subjects for further extract and dissection, and we shall with pleasure perform these processes at the earliest convenient season.