HOSPITAL PATIENTS.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1158, 13 March 1874, Page 4

HOSPITAL PATIENTS.

[wESTJPOKT EVENING STAB.] As" extract from au article appearing in the Melbourne Argus of a recent date presents an idea worthy consideration. The proposition made in Melbourne is that in every Hospital there should be a ward set specially apart for paying patients. Thus reducing the burthen of non-paying patients by offering to those who needing medical assistance are able to pay therefor accommodation and appliances not always obtainable in thenown homes. The Argus says :—"That the proposal is perfectly practical has been already proved in Europe. By the institution of a special ward, the inmates of which would feel that they were in no sense the recipients of charity, and that their medical attendant occupied the same relation towards them that he would do if he were visiting them at their own homes, we should be securing, by cooperation, certain advantages which could not le otherwise acquired by persons occupying small houses', and unable to command the services of more than one domestic when they are overtaken by illness or accident." Remarks just as applicable to the management of small Hospitals on the Groldfields as to larger institutions in cities. - Taking Wcstport District Hospital, lotinstance, it not unfrequeully happens that patients aro received who would very willingly pay extra rates for

special accommodation, if such were obtaiuable, but who finding that nonpaying patients aro placed precisely on the satno footing and in tho same ward, consider that they do all that is necessary by paying at their departure, the minimum charges allowed. Charges so moderate that tho Hospital revenues aro thereby diminished rather than replenished. At times it no doubt happens that under present arrangements non-paying patients, rendered querulous by their ailments, fancy themse'rves less carefully tended than others whom they know to have entered as paying patients, and every action of tho attendants is jealously watched. The opening of a special ward would possibly prevent this.