HOSPITAL STAFFING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 182, 4 August 1939, Page 6

HOSPITAL STAFFING.

The Hospital Board's resolution to terminate the engagement of its medical and surgical directors is to be reconsidered at its next meeting, on a motion for rescission, and the circumstances are such that reconsideration should not be merely formal. The hospital, it cannot be too often stressed, exists for the patients, and that consideration should be dominantly influential with the board. Since it was reconstituted by the last election the board, under the vigorous chairmanship of Mr. Moody, has been prosecuting a policy of economies which, on the whole, has won general approval. It is right that this policy should not stop at the medical staffing, provided that the board is convinced that the particular economy it proposes -will save money, and save it without reducing efficiency. But there is doubt on both scores. Ostensibly the board was forced to its decision by the anticipation that it will be obliged to pay for the seiwices of its honorary visiting staff. A total sum of £20,000 has been mentioned (by a member of the board), which on a rough calculation would be equivalent to a payment of £500 a year to each member of the visiting staff for part-time services. Yet, judging by the intense rivalry which exists among the medical profession for appointments, for reasons which are not affected by the passage of the Social Security Act, such appointments are very highly valued even when unpaid. As to the question of efficiency, neither the public nor the board can be well enough informed to justify it in a dogmatic attitude, but it ought to be pointed out that the board's attitude is anomalous. It acknowledges the ability and industry of the directors and at the same time it professes confidence that the hospital's service will not suffer by their removal. Yet, if it persists in its proposal, it will return to the old order, which the

preceding board deemed so unsatisfactory as to justify the innovation. This inconsistency cannot be brushed aside by assertions; it ought to be clarified by a free and open discussion, in which the attitude of the honorary staff, the directors, and the board should be made clear to the public