HOSPITAL LOAFERS.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1077, 24 August 1883, Page 2

HOSPITAL LOAFERS.

We copy below two paragraphs regarding Wanganui Hospital from the Chronicle of the 22nd inst.: —County Fatients.—l'6 prevent inconvenience and delay on the part of patients coming into the Hospital from the country, it should be publicly known that, providing such patients come armed with the order for admission signed by the proper county or borough official, they can be admitted to the Hospital immediately on their arrival in town, without the order being countersigned by anybody in Wanganui. Hoarding them out. —The serious mischief occasioned by the beds at the Hospital being occupied by persons who are either beyond hospital treatment or are fitted for the seclusion of an old man’s refuge, was brought to a climax yesterday. The.institntion was already full beyond its proper limits, and several patients were sent in during the course of the day. In order to make room for the persons who would Be benefited by medical treatment, three of the “ old hands,” to whom the Hospital had become a home, were sent out to a boardinghouse in the town, at the expense, we presume, of the Borough Council. What is to be done with people of this class in the absence of a refuge for the a home for incurables, is no doubt a serious question ; but for the present the obvious and proper course is for the Benevolent Society to undertake the charge of the persons in question. Besides the three cases already alluded to, there are several other persons in the hospital who simply occupy beds which ought to be available for sick patients from town and country, and those persons should he hoarded out also, at the expense and under the care of the Benevolent Society.

A few months ago a prominent Wanganui councillor proposed to throw about a dozen unsuitable hospital inmates upon the streets of Wellington. The good sense and feeling of the other councillors prevented this being done, but the difficulty arising from their presence at the hospital, more especially when the accomodation is so limited, has become very serions. Patea Hospital has had one or two similar cases, and some few people hero, who have wished to evade their duty of co operating with their fellow citizens in retaining our Hospital by contributing a guinea or so, have spoken as if a case of this kind, and especially one named Brown, wore instances of mismanagement, and “loafers” who should not have been admitted. The flimsiness of this pretext is apparent when every large hospital in the colony and most of the smaller ones have had to provide for some cases of this kind. In Brown’s case wo are informed, the circumstances were brought under the notice of our ex-Mayor (who had before thought the case unsuitable), but who, when he realised the man’s condition, actually recommended he should bo re-admitted. The responsibility of admitting or excluding any or all Hospital cases should rest with a Committee, and not with individuals, who are inevitably liable to be censured by somebody, whatever course they may adopt, or however wise and necessary that course may be. Scott makes King James to say of the public, and its approbation or displeasure, Thou many-headed monster thing, Oh who would wish to be thy king! But King Janies might have been still more pathetic if he had essayed the im-possihili'-y of pleasing the hydra-headed monster as its servant; especially when

those of his many masters who condemn will fake no trouble lo ascertain the real facts, hut deem it a sort of merit to admit they know nothing about them, even while they utter their ignorant disparagement in the endeavours to keep the guinea, they really feel they ought to contribute as others do. If there is space available at Wanganui Hospital, patients from' out districts (or from Palca if our Hospital is really closed) are now informed that they will be. admitted at once, if they travel down there, and present guarantees Com the proper Borough or County officials that they will be liable for their support.