PRIVATE WARDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 July 1921, Page 6

PRIVATE WARDS.

IN PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

FAVORED BY COMMISSION

“The establishment of paying or private wards in public hospitals is,” states the Hospitals Commission report, “a. matter to which your commission has given considerable attention From the evidence, your commission beliqves that it is correct that the public hospitals of to-day are better equipped and staffed than private hospitals. Dr. Guthrie (Christchurch) stated that private hospitals ‘were of such a small nature that proper and desirable plant was not obtainable, nor was a proper staff from a medical point of view obtainable.’

, “‘A surgical crisis might arise at any i time, and the only sheet-anchor that the patient has to rely upon is the telephone, the ability of those who are in charge of the home—the matron and the nurses—to obtain the doctor’s services at once.’ ‘lt is not fair that a patient should take any risk that can be avoided by good organisation.’ and ‘this danger would be completely elimini ated' under the scheme proposed, viz., I “that the hospital boards should take over the entire responsibility of the care of the sick’ by establishing private paying wards attached to public hospitals. “Your commission considers that, with the increasing necessity for institutional treatment and the advantages of efficient hospital organisation, those w r ho can pay for hospital services should be placed in a position where, by doing so, • they can avail themselves of the focili- 1 ties afforded in our public institutions.” "In most of the larger hospitals (odds the report) preference is very properly given to the patients who are unable to go into private nursing homes; but there arises the injustice that ratepayers who contribute to the cost of the i hospitals are unable to make any use of the superior facilities which these afford, even though they are prepared to pay the full cost, not only <>J maintenance and nursing, but also of their treatment. Your commission considers that the provision of private wards would remedy this grievance, and, at the same time, afford a source of some profit which should be devoted co the improvement of the general hospital., “The necessity for private maternity wards being connected wflth public hospitals under the boards also impressed your commission, and it is felt that this want should receive immediate attention. Your commission... .recommends the establishment of paying or private ; wards in connection with public hospi- i tals wherever the conditions are favor-1 able: that such wards be under the con-1 trol of the medical superintendent; but J that patients choose their own medical • attendant, and make their own arrange- 1