HOSPITAL COSTS

Manawatu Herald, Volume LI, Issue 4448, 6 May 1930, Page 4

HOSPITAL COSTS

MINISTER’S APPEAL,

Figures showing the great expansion that hospital and allied services had made in New Zealand during the last few years, were quoted by the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, Minister of Health, when speaking at the opening of the Wilson Memorial block at the Palmerston North hospital on Friday.

For the past live years, ho said, the figures relating to expenditure by hospital boards and Health Department’s institutions pictured fairly clearly the development of those services. In that comparatively short period—from 1924-25 to 1928-29 —hospital maintenance increased from £964,183 to £1,206,3 90, an increase of 25 per cent. This figure of hospital maintenance included direct expenditure only on provisions, surgery and • dispensary, domestic and establishment, salaries and wages, miscellaneous maintenance and maintenance of outpatients departments. It did not include interest on capital sunk in land, buildings and equipment, nor depreciation, which together were estimated to represent an annual figure of about £320,000. In the same period, the annual numbers of inpatients under treatment increased from 05,240 to 87,888, an increase of 34.7 per cent. (The increase in the number of inpatients as between 1927-28 and 1928-29 was i 5,040).

. Outpatients increased from 39,790 in 1924-25 to 73,952 in 192829. (For 1927-28 the figure was 71,987). Despite this apparently extraordinary increase in the number of outpatients it was of interest to note that the Dominion had less than one outpatient to one inpatient whilst the United Kingdom had 4-i to one and the States of New South Wales and Victoria 3 to 1 and 3A to 1 respectively. Local conditions and in particular the fact that New Zealand had only a few large centres of (population had, of course, a special bearing on this point. Coming back to the matter of inpatients he found that the aggregate days stay of inpatients of general hospitals during (he year 192829 was no less than 1,0-53,033. Including special hospitals such as iufcctions diseases hospitals, maternity hospitals, consumptive sanatoria and the several Health Department's institutions, the aggregate days stay in hospital was 2,195,895, an average of 1.5 hospital days per head of the population. Although the administration of hospitals was the major function of hospital boards and hospital maintenance constituted 70 per cent, of the total expenditure, there were other important functions to which reference should not be omitted.

CHARITABLE AID. The administration of indoor and outdoor relief, which he regretted had in recent years also shown a considerable increase in costs, was probably the most difficult phase of the board’s work particularly at the present time. Indoor relief had not increased quite so appreciably, being £110,874 in 1928-29, as against £94,750 in 1924-25.

Outdoor relief, however, in the same period increased from £70,190 to £134,804, largely accounted for by the existence of large-scale unemployment which made its appearance in 1920. Ambulance services, though for ming a comparatively Small item of the total expenditure of boards, had in the past live years increased in cnmial cost from £3830 to £7311. District medical services from £O,983 to £.10,330 and district nursing from £0291 to £9856.

The total maintenance of hospital boards and Health Department’s institutions for the year 1928-29 was £1,(571,295, the corresponding figure for the ,previous year being £1,593,001. HOW LOCAL BODIES FARED, Having regard, however, to the sleadily growing popularity of the public services resulting in their utilisation by a wider economic section of the community and'to the development of related services by the department itself such as dental clinics, native nursing and medical services and assistance to Blanket Society's activities, it was desirable to view the subject from the (aspect of the burden on the public funds, added the Minister. Levies on local bodies increased from £497,272 in 1924-25 to £675,238 in 1928-29, the estimated amount for the year just closed being £(588,72 8. Subsidies to hospital boards payable from the consolidated fund totalled £54(5,100 in 1924-25 and £(598,105 in 1928-29. Including other expenditure by the department on its institutions and other related activities previously referred to the total burden on the public funds increased from £l,181,924 in 1924-25 to £1,523,929 in .1928-29. The estimated total amount for 1929-30 was £1,562,248 epuivalent to £1 .1/4 per head of the population, as against 17/5 per head sis years ago. The department was at present examining' estimates for the current year and he was not in a position to project the amount of the demands which would he made. He expressed the hope, however, that boards would co-operate in drawing their estimates as finely as possible, recognising the constant need for economy.