HOSPITAL WITHOUT WARDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1922, Page 2

HOSPITAL WITHOUT WARDS.

| • I A remarkable hospital is about to lie. 'opened in Xew York City. It simply bristles with new ideas, but its salient features arc these: — It has no wards. The fees are "From nothing up." The traditional hospital Ward has been denounced to an increasing extent by American medical men for some years past. Its depressing surroundings, a, great American doctor recently declared, are "a psychic insult to the patients.'' This authority. Dr. Hugh Cabot, professor of surgery- af tlie University of Michigan, considers that under present conditions hospital patients are treated "as though they had bodies but no minds .or souls." | In the Fifth Avenue Hospital, as the. 'new institution will he known, each of, the 300 patients will have a private room and a orivate bath. j The walis of the rooms are sound- ! proof, so t'niit the comings and goings iof patients and nurses, sounds of delirium and other disturbances, arc all kept I from the cars of the occupants. j The temperatures of the rooms can be I independently varied from zero to the I warmth of n Turkisli bath. I (V.vwig t-o the peculiar arrangement of ! the buildings, every room has a maxii mum of light and air. The ground plan I resemblets a gigantic \ with semi-square : additions at the ends of the bars. I I'r.lly half the rooms command wonderful \ lews, for a mile or more, over the i beautiful Central Park. The rooms re- ! served lor cases where complete quiet is ' necessary are on the ninth floor of the building, where traffic noises dwindle to a subdued hum which ia rathe." restful than otherwise. in the matter of payment, the Fifth Avenue Hospital is particularly up to date in that it recognises the existence of that large class of people who cannot afford expensive treatments or operations, but who arc unwilling to a<«t,L the free facilities of "charitable institutions." while the hospital itself, of course, needs tlie amounts, however email, that patients can afford to pay. The fees at this hospital, therefore, are gn. luated according to the income of the patient, considered in relation to his hr-.aacia! burdens. This is the meaning of the phrase "From nothing up." It does not matter how high in the social scale a patient may be; a poor professional with a family to support might pay loss than a bachelor ooalheavcr. for instance. In many other waye the hospital patient's smallest needs are met. For example, there are special anaesthesia rooms. Patients' feelings are not harrowed and their wellsbeing affected by being taken into the grisly surroundings of t!u operating theatre while they are still conscious. Instead they are put into v.hat is apparently a cosy eitting-room and there \ the anaesthetic ia applied.—"Daily Mail."