HOSPITAL METHODS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 May 1921, Page 1

HOSPITAL METHODS

A DOCTOR’S SUGGESTION

WELLINGTON, May 2

Before the Hospital Commission, Dr William Collins submitted a plan for four base hospitals in the Dominion. Superintendents, be said, should meet and submit recommendations to the Director of Hospitals. Superintendents should not have control of the treatment of patients, but should see that every patient is properly cared for. Each base hospital should be fully equipped with whole time surgeons, | physicians, bacteriologists and radiolo- ' gists, all living on the premises. Under ! this scheme patients would receive the , whole attention of whole time men. Subsidiary hospitals, public and private, should have whole time men also. At taehed to each public hospital should be private wards, open to all practitioners in the district. Where there was an honorary staff private wards were not usually a success. Patients should pay two or three guineas a week. The Government should pay a ! subsidy of pound for . pound on levies from local authorities, voluntary contributions, fees collected, donations and bequests. He strongly urged that the Otago Medical School should be given every assistance necessary to equip stu-i dents during their six-year course to enable them to pass from the school to the position of -resident house surgeon or house physician at a hospital. Unless some provision was made for medical students to gradually pass from the school through hospitals to private practice a groat deal of difficulty would arise, as many would not be able to make a living. Under such a system every man who entered the School o! Medicine would feel that his future success was assured. Private hospitals, he considered, should not at present be interfered with, except in so far as that thy should Ik> open to the superintendent, who would examine into methods of treatment and proper record of cases. Hospital boards should remain as at present constituted and carry out their functions as before, but he suggested that the medical superintendent should lie a member of the board. He urged also the need of accommodation for such mental cases as really required care and treatment, but were not so far advanced in disease as to justify their being committed to a mental hospital. Fie suggested that information gained by the Commission and its findings should be submitted to a committee of three best business brains in the community. Financing was a business proposition and the care of the patient and prevention of disease a medical one. The Commission held over the examination of Dr Collins in order to give members time to study his proposals carefully.