HIGHER HOSPITAL FEES.
PROM 9/- TO 12/- A DAY. ! ALREADY APPLIED BY SOME BOARDS, ■ FALLING OPF OF PAYMENTS. In view of the increasing cost, of, hospital service due to' recent developments in medical science 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 received. This matter has been considered by the executive:-of •Hospital Boards Association, which has recommended 'boards to raise their scale of fees from the usual 9s a day jfco 12s a day, and one or two boards have already done so. This does not, •however, approximate the full averago cost of hospitals, and as the institutions are no longer confined to the destitute the question of ensiiring that the full cost of treatment is recovered from those, able to pay is still a matter for consideration..
According to a recently-issued appendix to the Health Department's annual' report patients' payments have rio.v become a not inconsiderable portion of hospital revenue, constituting ko per cent, of the total revenue of hospital, boards and departmental hospitals, and they have shown a very much greater proportionate increase jhan hospital expenditure. During the year ended March 31st last the amount Received per occupied bed in the general hospitals controlled by hospital boards showed a slight i crease, averaging £64.9 per annum, as against■■£63.7 in 1926-27.
The average, however, for all hospitals and sanatoria administered* by Hospitals -dropped from £67.6 to £65.3, While the fees received by the department's institutions dropped from £162 tJo £159.6. The average of all hospitals, both board and departmental, dropped from £77 to £74.1. These %uros include amounts paid between one board and another, or by the boards to the department, which in the case of the department's sanatoria constitute practically all the fees, although the boards recover, of course, an much as they can from the patients for whose fees they are responsible. ] Fcgs of all descriptions received by hbspital boards during the year, including payments for inmates in charitable Institutions (derivable chiefly from old-age pensions), district nursing and other fees, and excluding fees received from, other boards or from tile Governments, amounted to £382,218, as against £393,835 in 1926-27. This is about the same ratio in regard toj the occupied beds as given above, arid shows that the proportionate decrease must be looked for rather in the anlount paid by patients themselves thajn in decrease from fees from other sov(rces. •',< •
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/SNEWS19290115.2.3
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Shannon News, 15 January 1929, Page 1
Word count
Tapeke kupu
410HIGHER HOSPITAL FEES. Shannon News, 15 January 1929, Page 1
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Copyright undetermined – untraced rights owner. For advice on reproduction of material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.