OUR HOSPITALS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12616, 29 November 1926, Page 3

OUR HOSPITALS

DR. MacEACHERN’S CRITICISM VICTORIAN SYSTEM PRAISED. Following his congratulatory report on the Victorian hospital system, Dr }M. MacEachern, who investigated the system some mouths ago, lias, in a letter to the Inspector of Charities (.Mr Love) written in further glowing terms. Mr MacEachern says: “I strongly urged New South Wales to adopt your system. I also recommended that New Zealand adopt the best principles of your system. I have a most excellent illustrated lecture on the Victorian hospital system. It is making a great hit in America. The \ iotorian system uniquely safeguards the multiple interests involved—those of the public, the hospital committees i and personnel, the medical profession, the Government, and, above all, the patient; rather than allowing one or i other to predominate to tho detriment of the others, especially the patient as at present in the New Zealand hospital system. Here it is quite evident that an originally well-intended system is breaking, due to political influence and interference, and too much bureaucratic control. From time immemorial and to time immeorial politics and pathology have been, and will he, incompatible. The New Zealand hospitals, almost wholly bereft of that finest of features so characteristic throughout Victoria—voluntary support—may become cold, routine-liko .State institutions, which could he prevented had they built their system on broad and firm principles as the State of Victoria. The* remedy for the ills in the New Zealand system can bo found through remodelling their system after that of Victoria. And the future success of hospitals in New South Wales depends on how closely they, too, adhero to the Victorian system.”