HOSPITAL POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 65, 18 March 1925, Page 4

HOSPITAL POLICY.

The Auckland Hospital Board is again j considering additions to its now exceptionally largo aggregation of buildings. Since the city is growing, additions are inevitable, but the time has come for the Board to say that the present institution is large enough. We do not know what size the observation ward would be that the Medical Superintendent asks fcr. but wo note that at last night's meeting the chairman spoke of a block to contain this ward and epidemic wards in terms which suggest that ho intends to put this building on the present site. A year ago we drew attention to the size of the hospital, and said that general medical opinion favoured the 400-bcd institution as the limit for general efficiency. The chairman of the Board disagreed with us then, and perhaps he still thinks that the hospital I should be made larger and not divided, iWe believe, however, that a policy of further expansion on the present site would be wrong, and that the Board I should forthwith go in for decentralisaj tion. The hospital is described as the ! largest hospital in Australasia, but that j may be a weakness, not a virtue. j Efficiency is not always proportionate to size. I -