HOSPITAL CONTROL

Hokitika Guardian, 22 April 1926, Page 1

HOSPITAL CONTROL

DUNEDIN OPINION’S. DUNEDIN. April 2d. Traversing Dr Al. T. AlacEachern’s report on hospitals, .Mr Knight, chairman of the Otago Hospital Hoard, stated ho saw no objection to private wards, but a maximum maintenance charge would he necessary, covering the total cost of treatment, including overhead costs. An ideal scheme would involve at least four medical and surgical wards for men and lour lor women, and such an undertaking would mean immediate borrowing. He agreed with Dr Alai Eachern on the staffing policy so far as metropolitan hospitals were concerned, hut disagreed that medical superintendents in centres outside the cities should be purely administrative officers. That was doubtless the ideal, but the boards concerned had insufficient money. The senior member of the honorary medical stall' expressed a strong opinio against paying wards in New Zealand. where conditions were different from those in Canada. From the patients’ viewpoint it would Be very expensive, for ho would contribute not only £G or more to cover the cost of maintenance, but would be expected to pay the deficit on patients in the public wards to make tilings pay all round. Again, he must pay for medical attendance and nursing attendance, because it would he wrong to have one sei ol nurses lor Loth public and paving patients, since the latter would expect much more nursing attention at the •expense of attention to necessitous patients. Adding the payment for drugs, X-ray plates, laboratory tests, etc., the patient would he lucky to get off with £2O weekly. AN AUCKLAND VtEAY. AUCKLAND, April 20. In discussing Dr AlacEnchern’s report on the hospitals, Mr A\ illinni Yullance, chairman of the Dominion Hospitals Asociation, and of the Auckland Hospital Board, remarked: “What, we most jealously guard against is the introduction of anything in our hospital system which savours of class distinction. Dr AlacEac-lierii discounted the idea that anything of the sort would creep in under the community system. At tho same time, he admitted that under tho community system there were different degrees of conveniences provided for various classes according to payments. What 1 am most concerned about is this: “Wo do not want to introduce the pauper system in New Zealand. There must be no pau]>erisation. _ “AYe want to provide for the mg middle or intermediate class which cannot afford to pay extreme fees, as well as for those who, perhaps, cannot pay at all, but there must be no differentiation in the treatment. If the community system is introduced at nb into our hospitals, in my opinion, it will be absolutely imperative that the patient should have the right of appealing to the board of the hospital to fix the maximum fee that can be charged. ’