“EIMINATE SLUMS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 137, 31 August 1927, Page 13

“EIMINATE SLUMS”

)NE WAY TO CUT DOWN HOSPITAL COSTS MR. SAVAGE ON B.M.A. (THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter .) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. “ITTE have no excess accommo- ** dation in our hospitals today. If we had an epidemic tomorrow we would have to improvise all sorts of beds for the patients. We are fairly well crowded at ordinary times, and this in spite of the fact that New Zealand is one of the healthiest, if not the healthiest country in the world.’' These are the words of Mr. M. J. Savage. Auckland West, who dealt exhaustively in the House of Representatives to-night with the Dominion’s hospital system. His remedy for excessive cost in hospital administration was to eliminate the slums so that patients would be less, and consequently less accommodation would be required. What brought Mr. Savage to his feet was an utterance of Mr. W. D. Lysnar, Gisborne, who advocated discrimination in the payment of fees for working and wealthy people, respectively. Mr. Savage suggested that Mr. Lysnar was reviving something which lie had hoped was quite dead, that of private wards, as advocated by the British Medical Association. He gathered from an article he quoted from the ‘’New Zealand Medical Journal” that the British Medical Association wished to have the administration of hospitals in the Dominion handed over to a board instigated by the association itself, taking the jurisdiction entirely out of the hands of the people. He reminded the medical profession that it did not embrace all those who gave their services free, many people having given life work to hospital administration. He was entirely against the destruction of the present system. Mr. Lysnar: None suggested destroying it. You want to economise in building. Mr. Savage: You say “do not destroy it,’* and then say “Do not provide for patients.’* If there were no beds the patients would not be of much use. So long as we leave our slum areas we will have patients, and will- be unable to economise in building hospitals. Mr. Lysnar: At £I,OOO a bed. Mr. Savage: If the honourable member can show the architects how to reduce the cost of certain services without reducing the services themselves we will be pleased to hear from him. Mr. Lysnar: It is the buildings not the services. Mr. Savage: We have had some of the best architects in the world, and I would rather have their advice than that of the honourable member. We must make those who can pay shoulder the burden, but people must still have a say in who shall cut their head or their leg off. Mr. Lysnar ckiimed misrepresentation, and said that he did not advocate differentiation in treatment, but only in payment according to the circumstances of patients.