The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1890. THE TIMARU HOSPITAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1990, 4 January 1890, Page 2

The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1890. THE TIMARU HOSPITAL.

From the report of the case of the girl Warne, which we published in our last issue, it would appear that to get into the Timaru Hospital is a matter of considerable difficulty. The girl, evidently in a dying condition, and accompanied by her nurse and her mother, presented herself for admission to the hospital on Eriday ; on Saturday she was admitted, and jn Sunday she died. The cause of the delay in admitting her is alleged to have been that she had no certificate, which, of course, indicates that before being admitted one must have some sort of a letter of introduction. This, no doubt, is a rule of the hospital, and, if so, it is a rule of which the commissioners ought to be ashamed. Let us state the case again. The girl was dying, and she begged to be admitted ; but the rule said : "No; you have not your letter of introduction. Go away, perish on the street if you have no friends : 20 and disseminate disease if ,

your ailment is contagious ; but clear out of the precincts of this charitable institution, and don't coma back until you bring a certificate." Can it be believed that men having one drop of human blood in their veins could be so callous-hearted and so indifferent to the miseries of the sick as to place such a barrier as this in the way of entering an institution maintained by public money! If one read of a ease like this as having happened in Bussia or in Turkey, one would feel inclined to go on his knees and thank G-ed he did not live in a country where the dying were turned adrift on the streets away from the public hospitals because j they were not fortunate enough to have with them a passport bearing the sign-manual of some local dignitary. What would anyone say but that it was not a civilised country —yet we find this unchristian, inhuman, disgraceful thing done in our own hospital, and in the name of the

people of South Canterbury by their representatives on the Board of Commissioners. It is not only a disgrace to the commissioners, but a disgrace to the community, and the people ought not to rest an hour until this barbarous rule is expunged from the regulations of their hospital. What is it for? To prevent impostors getting into the hospital ? "What nonsense! what senility ! Do the commissioners think their institution so inviting that people will go in there to spend their holidays? Are they afraid of being invaded by picnic parties, especially when they make the monstrous charge of £1 15s per week ? The girl referred to was, we are told, suffering from malignant diphtheria, but instead of being admitted where she ought to have been she had to go to a boardinghouse, where probably she has left the germs of the disease. If through this the foul and fatal disease spread and cause death, who is to blame? The commissioners who made a rule that turned the patient away from the hospital door to disseminate ife. And the girl herself died. Is it not possible she died because she was not attended to in time ? Is it not possible her death was the result of neglect ? The question as to what she was or was not does not arise. She was a human being, and anything more that may be said about her has nothing to do with the matter at issue. What we object to is the barbarous rule which forbids the :. officers to admit sick persons without a certificate. What ought to have been done under such circumstances was to have admitted the patient and made the inquiries after. In London there is a place where stray dogs are taken in and cared for until their owners turn up and claim them; in Timaru there is a public hospital where human beings sick unto death are turned away from the door if they cannot show a certificate. This is the Christian charity and civilisation of which the Briton who never shall be a slave boasts so loudly. A year or two ago we gave some advice to the commissioners, and they acted upon it. They proposed to publish the names of recipients of charitable aid, but we told them that the same end would be gained in a much more civilised way, by consulting the contributing local ! bodies. They accepted our advice, and we believe they do not regret it; and if they expunge the rule we have referred t>v ab unco tthvy will noTor regret it gither. " Let them admit the patient first,' and make the inquiries afterwards. The cost of the patients keep while the inquiries are being made will not be great.

As regards the charge—-3&s per week •—made to patients, it is monstrous, yet it is Hospital. and Charitable Aid Commissioners who have fixed it! The idea of coupling the word Charity with an institution managed on such principles is a mockery, All this is the more absurd when one remembers that the institution is mainly supported by a special tax placed upon tea. We hear a great deal about saving the ratepayers* money, but it is the tax of 2d per lb placed upon tea that supports Hospitals and Charitable Institutions. The tax is collected by the Government and handed to the local bodies as subsidies, and these subsidies are sufficient to pay the local bodies' contribution to charitable aid. The poor man who depends on his day's work and has a family contributes Baore towards charitable aid

than a single man with an income of £IO,OOO a year—and yet we hear every board meeting something about the ratepayers' money. The whole thing ia a disgrace and a scandal. It makes the community appear as inhuman, uncharitable, unchristian, and completely indifferent to the woes and misfortunes of their fellow-beings. It is simply abhorrent to anyone with any sense of decency to think that if a poor man, the father of a family, who has nothing but his labor to depend upon, happens to break his leg, _or meet with any misfortune of a similar nature, he has to pay 35s per week in our hospital, and that if he do not pay it forthwith he is summoned and compelled by a Court of Justice to pav or go to" gaol, or take advantage of * the Bankruptcy Court. It is the time people took this matter in hand ; it is time they removed the brand of callous-heartedness which the management of their hospital stamps upon them, and show something like sympathy with the sufferings of their fellow-beings. We hope they will look to it, and see that more charity and less of the commercial principles enter henceforward into the management of this institution.