The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1920. NEW HOSPITAL-DISTRICTS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3598, 9 October 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1920. NEW HOSPITAL-DISTRICTS.

With 'which is incorporated "The Taibape Post and Waimarino News” * ~

The hospitals district problem is just now receiving a good deal of consideration by Parliament. The policy of a late Minister of Public Health which confined fully equipped hospitals to the large is not regarded as the best, safest, or most humane policy for the Government to adopt 'by the present Minister of 'Finance. The Hon. Mr Parr seems to place more importance upon distributing hospital service so that the whole population may have some good from it while the former Minister favoured the erection of ostentatious buildings in the chief cities, making them places where the Health Department officers might experiment and doctors generally continue their professional education. Just now Parliament is concerned with the setting up of a new district in Otago, and division on the merits of the case indicate that the petition for a new hospital district was favoured by thirty-six members as against nine who opposed it. It matters less to the people of Taihape what that division disclosed than the policy the Minister disclosed during deliberations on fhe proposal. He said the Bill under discussion, the Hospital and Charitable Aid Amendment Bill,- af though specifically for granting a new hospital district to South Otago, afso represented the settled policy of the- Government. The Premier said he had -gone carefully into the position and they had come to the conclusion that the demand of the people of South Otago was warranted. The Bill violated no Settled policy of the Department because "several specific instances where new hospitals were set-up showed that wherever new districts were required the Department agreed to that course. He emphatically laid it down that the policy of the Department couTd never be that country districts must depend on a few base hospitals in cities. All members present in the House when a division was taken supported the Ministers’, views, excepting nine who represented the centre base hospital that was to its jurisdiction limited to a district, that it could effectively deal with. Wehave said that a former Minister advocated and adopted a policy which favoured making hospitals in cities educational institutions rather than for what they came into existence_ And in the debate on the subject in Parliament this week is discovered that some members still view hospitals in a similar light. The greatest, opponent to the new district for South Otago frank'y stated in'.the House that, “there was a specif/ reason why the base hospital in Otago shoufd not be weakened by dissipation of authority; that reason was that there was a medical school which would suffer if a l argo part of the revenue o£. the Otago Board was cut off.” fhe question confronting settlers in large districts is, are hospital districts set up for providing medical schools primarily, making legitimate hospital service purely a secondary matter? Are hospital districts formed for levying taxation from settlers for the upkeep of institutions for the education of medical students, or are they for the saving of human life, for the mending of broken bones, for the nursing back the maimed and sick to health? There can of course, be but * \ one answer to such a question. The Hospitals and Chairtahle * Aid Act was never intended to he so misapplied. If medical schools are required they should 'certainly be provided, not by taxation of a few settlers, but by a general tax, simply because a medical school or coTegc is a national institution open to stud- ; ents from any part of the Dominion. Then, it cannot be said, justly, or even that any large district should he deprived of much needed base hospitaf service because some other base hospital’s income from taxation would suffer. Tho Min-

ister of Public Health rightly, wo

contend) States that, “the .policy of < the Health Lepartment could never j he that country districts must depend i on a few base hospitals in cities. ’’ j What is the position in the Taihape j district? There is a base hospital at j Wanganui which some advocates of j city institutions declare must serve j the hospital needs of recent Hawke’s j Bay territory; must continue to serve j rapidly increasing settlement a bun- j dred and fifty miles distant, from j whence men may have to be carried j or otherwise transported many miles | before a railway is reached. We say | such is simply playing ducks and j drakes with human life and health merely that a palatial, ostentatious hospital structure, elaborately furnished and equipped may be made available for city people solely, j Further we urge that commonsense, common justice and common liumani- j ty must take precedence of hospital fads and hospital faddists. There should be no cause tf?ven for people to advocate a base hospital in Taihape, for it is virtually impossible to find another locality of t’he size ? settlement and increasing importanace that is so inadequately provided with hospital 1 , service. It is contended by at least one settler that the local hospital is a branch of tho Wanganui hospital and not mero’y a cottage hospital, but it is undeniable that it has always from the time of its erec™ lion been treated as a cottage hospital', and never as part of a base hospital. For the last seven years, if there has been an agitation for having a base hospital at Taihape as being the natural centre of a very large -district. TJndeniab’y, Taihape is the marketing centre of settlement on the Hawke’s Bay side of the Rangitikei River, and as setters metal their roads and build bridges over the river a still wider area of settlement will make Taihape the centre for marketing,' both for .supplies and for despatching wool, meat, butter and timber. This hospitaf, district was formed when there was virtually no settlement over a very .large area which has in course of time become closely in which several thriving townships have made their appearance/and yet because ifase hospitals in large cities .want the taxation levied districts remote from the hospital base are to* remain with nothing more than a coHHge hospital'forty or, fifty, or more miles distant, and reachable only by primitive roads. It wi,T be positively matter for common opera for part of the Taihape to remain in the Wanganui hospital district as it will be nearer the base hospital at "Napier. The Minister of Public Health realises that time and circumstance warrant Taihape being made a hospital base, and if a petition is presented to Parliament, as soon as possible, that hospital service now so urgently necessary in the huge district of which Taihape is the natural centre it wifi be granted. The policy of the Health Tlepartment could never be that country districts must depend on a few base hospitals in cities.