HOSPITAL BENEFITS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 June 1939, Page 8

HOSPITAL BENEFITS

TAKING EFFECT ON & AFTER JULY I ANNOUNCEMENT BY HEALTH MINISTER. CONDITIONS OF PAYMENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The Minister of Health (Mr Fraser) announced today that pursuant to Section 79 of the Social Security Act. he had determined that hospital benefits. in accordance with the Act are to be available on and after July 1. Hospital benefits consist of payments from the Social Security Fund for hospital treatment —that, is the medical and surgical treatment and nursing care and attendance and maintenance afforded in hospitals. Under the regulations which have been made, payments from the fund in respect to hospital maintenance and treatment are to be made at the rate of six shillings a day, the payment to be made direct to those controlling hospitals in accordance with the Act. The payment from the fund to hospital boards will relieve a patient from all charges in respect of maintenance and treatment in hospital board institutions. In the case of private hospitals and approved institutions, payment from the fund is to be applied in partial satisfaction of the charges ordinarily payable. The Act empowers the Minister to decide whether any treatment afforded in or at a hospital is or is not hospital treatment for the purposes of benefit, but the general intention is that hospital treatment shall embrace actual medical and surgical treatment, as well as isolation under medical supervision and medical observation.