HOSPITAL SYSTEMS COMPARED

Hokitika Guardian, 9 January 1931, Page 8

HOSPITAL SYSTEMS COMPARED

Impressions in the mind of a wellknown New Zealand medical practitioner, Dr. E. C. Barnett, of Palmerston North, on his return from a visit to the Continent and England were the shocking conditions in Britain, the amazing amount of cafe life in Paris, and the noticeable antiBritish feeling among the French, the sociable nature of the Germans, the cheapness of living in Czechoslovakia, where the best, of boots cost only 12s and the best of overcoats 30s, the glory of ancient Rome, and evidence everywere of militarism. Dr. Barnett spent a good deal of time studying medical matters. Speaking of the English public hospital system which existed solely on donations and appeals, he said it was a wonder how the institutions carried on. And yet every city and town had a public hospital of some sort from those of world-wide renown to simple cottage hospitals. As all the work on the medical side was gratuitously given, care was taken as to who were admitted. The result was that the middle class was “faced wjth no alternative from the private hospital, where the charge was often as high as logs, per week. Eventually the Government would have to do something. On the medical s de, while methods of diagnosis had undergone a wonderful change, there had not been such a remarkable alteration in surgical methods ot recent years. As regards radium, it was the general consensus of opinion that its field was limited in the treatment of cancer. Investigation had not yet discovered the cause of the malady nor how it spread. In Berlin a surprising amount of surgical work was done under spinal anaesthesia.