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Auckland Star, Volume IX, Issue 2711, 28 December 1878, Page 3

To the Editor : Sir,—Now that tnere are so many of the Ministry here 1 wish your kind permission to bring under their notice ! some matters pertaining to the Auckland Hospital. The lirst thing that requires the attention of the authorities is the great want of nurses to look after the sick. You "will be surprised when I tell you that there is ■but one paid day-nurse, and one paid nightnurse to attend to au average of seventy patients, but such is the case I assure you. The one paid man can do no more than partly look after one ward, "while the other wards are left to the tender mercy of a certain class of individuals who make the hospital their home nine months out of the year. The place is kept very clean, which is a good thing in itself; but when the sick are compelled to do it, it becomes a wrong. The fellows who have the nominal charge of the wards do very little work themselves ; but they do the bullying and swearing, while the patients do the wash ing up and cleaning. You may be very certain that it takes a great amount of profanity to keep such a large place clean ; but those chaps are equal to the task, and their capability in that line is really wonderful. The tending of the very sick seems to be a secondary consideration entirely. The food supplied is of the very poorest that can. be procured in Auckland; this is because the lowest tender is accepted; such tender being so low that nothing but the most inferior stuff can be supplied at the price._ I don't know why it is that similar institutions in the other provinces can have everything they require, and rightly so ; while the Auckland Hospital is carried on in the most beggarly way imaginable. Anything appertaining to Auckland seems as if certain to suffer neglect at the hands of those in power, no matter who they be.—l am, &c, Clifton.