TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 18840, 5 June 1920, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Faced with the unpleasant fact that the bank overdraft was £.52,000, the governors of the London Hospital, the largest hospital in the United Kingdom, decided at the quarterly meeting in March that in future patients must pay something towards tile cost of their food, if they can afford to do so. The hospital last year treated 19.700 inpatients, and 119,000 outpatients, the latter receiving altogether 450,000 attendances. These numbers were greatr than in any previous year. And so were the expenses. In 1 914 the hospital paid £SOOO for milk, last year the hill was £16,000. The expenditure on meat in the same period rose from £5200 to £109,00, and nurses’ salaries increased from £IO,OOO to £19,000. Before the war linen sheets cost 5s each; this year 1500 cotton sheets have already been bought at 19s 6d each. Every patient now costs £3 17s a week, and the governors in deciding that each, if able, shall pay 10s a week are not asking anything unreasonable. The London Hospital mainly benefits the working class, which has hitherto assisted it by workshop collections. In view of the high wages now earned by workers in practically every industry the proposed charge for the most skilled attendance in one of the great hospitals of the world should be met willingly

The alternative is closing down half of the Hospital, thus lessening its usefulness, and [■lacing great difficulties in the way of reopening it fully again.

At the Hospital Boards’ Conference the necessity for more cficcve steps in the co.lect;on of patient.-’ fee- was men r ioned, and figures wire presente:! to the conference showing (hat the amount received by the boards from the patients in the various districts varied from fiv ■ per cent, of the claims to twenty per rent It is not sug-ge-led that the variation was due to any dtfierenccs in the wealth of districts hut rather to differences in the efficiency of ihe administration. As a .natter of fact Dr Val.-nt ne imp; e-:-ad on the conference the fact that even twenty pet cent, was too little. The cost of maintenance in the ••arious ho, pi ais. he said,' should tie btrne equal’y by the Goveninn i t, the hj eal bodies and the patients. Thai \,M.uld moan a revenue of 33 l-3rd per ce .1. of the total extracteei from the patient- From the figures quoted by the AP-uFer of Public Health (the Hon. C. .1 Parr! the following ttddc, showing what won.d be the rc.m*t ol distributing the burden os Dr Valintlne suggested, is compiled:— Equal At ore,-tut. l)is ribution £ £ Focal bodies’ levies . 550,000 257.C00 Government subsidy 2S/ 000 257,000 Patients’ lees . . . . 135.000 257,000

Another question raised by Dr Valintinn at the conference was of extreme importance. He suggested that it would be a good thing to copy a proposal by tire North Canterbury Hospital Board to set aside a portion of the hospital and to make the patients pay for everything done for them. In other words to co-'.duct alongside the hospital whore the charges are the same <-tid only the collection is alfected by the patient's ability to pay, a I. spital where trly those able to pay wou’d be treated. The weakness in the North Canterbury scheme should he apparent < : everyone. There can be no objection to asking those patients who are well able to do s.i to pay full fees, but in introduce any system under which (here would he a suspicion that there were two grades of treatment in the one institution — and it. would be text door to impossible to avoid that suspicion—would be fatal. The North Canterbury Hospital Board’s proposal has not come up for final decision yet, hut it is meeting with strenuous opposition and its rejection is almost ccrt ain.

The payment of nurs-s and the conditons under which (hey work who mentioned by the Hon. C. .1. Parr at the Hospital Boards’ (’onference. The Southland Times has referred to thus subject more than once, and latest evidence goes to confirm the view expressed in this paper that the future of the nursing profession in this country cannot he assured with nothing more than fine words. It is all very well to talk about the nobility of the calling, but when the young girl of to-day is asked to choose the sphere in which she intends to work, the initial hard and distasteful work, the long uncertain hours, the unnecessarily severe discipline in some institutions and the poor pay offer very weak attractions compared with trade and commerce. It is impossible to blame them and certainly blaming them does not help the position. New Zealand at the present moment is suffering from a shortage of nurses. There are districts that arc sadly in want of trained nurses and even in the towns the supply is not equal to the demand. The position, however, will not lie corrected until the nursing profession is made more attractive and less burdensome than it is at present. Mr Parr referred to the introduction of a Superannuation bund for nurses, but Tie will have to go much further than that if he wishes to put the nursing staff of the dominion on a proper footing.