FURTHER INQUIRY NEEDED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 190, 14 August 1939, Page 6

FURTHER INQUIRY NEEDED.

The Hospital Board to-night will have an opportunity of reconsidering' its decision to dispense with tho services of its medical and surgical directors. The weakness of that decision is that it would result in the abandonment of a form of organisation which is established and successful in similar institutions abroad, and, according to independent and competent witnesses, has been associated in Auckland with a marked improvement in the service given the hospital patient. In this connection it is regrettable that neither the visiting staff at the hospital nor the Auckland branch of the B.M.A. has seen fit to acquaint the public or the board with its views, either on the general question of hospital staffing or on the undeniably abrupt manner in which the board, after engaging the services of two distinguished members of the profession, Tesolved to dispense with t-heni. As to the question of economy, with which the board is rightly concerned, it has yet to be shown that the decision, even on a

narrow view, would he economical. If the hoard accepts it as inevitable that the visiting staff will in future have to be paid it cannot be justified in assuming that itwill have to pay the existing large number; a mcnsitre of reorganisation will be essential, mi the grounds of economy alone. In view i'!' tlir-o considerations the board might well rounder it advisable to suspend judgment until it has made further inquiries.