HOSPITAL PATIENTS’ FEES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3891, 5 January 1929, Page 3

HOSPITAL PATIENTS’ FEES.

The following paragraph in regard to the fees of hospital patients appears in the “Appendix to the Annual Report of the Health Department,” just ended: —“Patients’ payments have now become a not incomsiderable portion of hospital revenue, constituting 20 per cent, of the total revenue of hospital hoards and .departmental hospitals, and it lias shown a very much greater proportionate increase than hospital expenditure

In view of the increasing cost of hospital (service due to recent developments in medical science, and the increasing burden on the public funds, the question is ever present of the adequacy of fees charged and the necessity of those able to do so paying the cost of treatment given. This matter has been considered by the executive of the Hospital Boards’ Association, which has l'ecomtoended hoards to raise their scale of fees from the usual 9/- per diem to 12/- per diem, and one or two hoards have already done so. This does not, however, approximate the full average cost of hospitals, and, as the institutions are no longer confined to the destitute, the question of ensuring that the .full cost of treatment is recovered from those able to pay is still a matter for consideration. This question, however, has wide ramifications, and is bound up with many other questions, such as pay wards, medical Staffing, and other questions of a less obvious nature.”