CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4024, 1 February 1892, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

|lO THE EDITOR.]

Sir,'—ln n footnote of ray last letter re Hospital contract nnd management, you advise that the Hospital surgeon should supply all drugs and medicines. This might answer the surgeon and, his chemist, about the public who pays the piper') The question is best answered by & comparison of the list of drugs and surgical appliances supplied during the last tout years, fhp following were the amounts paid befqre the contract system was adopted:—

£ B D P8 Medicines (Mason) 3211 3 1889 ~ „ 38 311 „ Instruments „ 1811 9 1890 „ „ 83 '8 Q „ Medicines „ .48 0 2 1991 „ (Eton) 20 6 2

The average is £SO per year, during this time the drugs were obtained trom Mr Mason, year, for the first time, tenders for the supply of drugs, etc, wore invited, and Mr Eton's account amounted to £2O 6s 2d, considerably less than half for the years preceding. Figures are stubborn things, and comparisons are odious.-I am, etc,

A Eatepayer ami Resident. [Oun correspondent need not be anxious about the economical administration of the hospital, for the Trustees have always; kept a tight rein on expensoe,eyen to the extent pf sacridpJAg efficiency tq economy. Tnen agamiyr fijoGregor oareful y supervises the expenditure, and this branch of it is one in which he vis anespcrt. We ourselves took a prominent part in organising both the Greytown and Masterton hospitals, and if our correspondent possessed a tithe of the experience tbat we have gained, he would S' robabjy. agree with us that ten..Bring for'.'Mgs on tip part of a country hospital is a'rauk absuT . dity, and. that the medical offcer ' should be : responsible jn this department, Tfoe figures cjuqied are misleadjpg, fpr when a hospital has spare funds it will b,uy instrument? and apparatus freely. One year there may be a .heavy expenditure in this direction, and another nothing at all. Of courao farther economy might be secured if in imitation of the l;wo medical

gentlemen in" Pickwick," all pre* scriptions were made from a single <NSi «& s||som salts j but would our correspon'tliiili rej}omnp(l tbia ?-Ed.VV.D.] / i, ~, ■■"—