Paying Hospital Patients.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16847, 29 May 1920, Page 8

Paying Hospital Patients.

The scheme which the Hospital Board has in view of erecting another hospital for patients who can afford to pay fees, the latter to assist in the upkeep of the existing hospital for those who cannot afford to pay, is one which should commend itself to the community generally. Yet by one of our contemporaries it has been made the subject of

uninstructed criticism and or a crude appeal to class prejudice. .Reference is made to the "stigma which would " attach to admission to the wards of

"a definitely 'pauper' hospital," and it is asserted that "the Board's pro- " posal to differentiate between rich " and poor should find little support in "this democratic country." As a matter of fact, the Christchurch Hos-

pital may be called a "pauper" hospital now by those who think the term has any place in the matter, for its main purpose is the reception of sufferers who cannot afford to pay for adequate medical or surgical treatment and care in their hcme3, or in private nursing establishments. In practice, too, the Board does "differentiate between rich " and poor," or at least between those who can and those who cannot pay for treatment, by charging the former fees which it is proposed shall be substantially increased. As between making some patients in the general hospital pay for their treatment and putting them in a building by themselves, tho moral difference is so small as to be practically invisible to unprejudiced

people. On the other hand the segregation of paying patients would release, for the benefit of non-paying patients,

a number of beds, and would therefore extend the benefits of the hospital without further cost to the ratepayers. It is sicnificant that this proposal by tho Board agrees with a suggestion made by a committee of the New Zealand branch

of tho British Medical Association to the Minister of Public Health, and published in the latest issue of the Department's "Journal." The committee point out that there is a large and important section of the public who are able to pay for medical attendance and nursing, but find it increasingly difficult to get suitable accommodation. They recommend therefore tho adoption of the Canadian scheme, which would include a separate building in the general hospital grounds for private patients. The charges they would pay would vary with tho accommodation provided, but on. the private-hospital scale patients would bo attended by doctors of their own choice, and would pay such fees as were agreed upon. The profits of the institution would be demoted to the as-

sistance of the funds of the general hospital. It is a matter ,of common knowledge that a certain number of hospital patients abuse the privilege of free treatment offered to those who cannot pay, and that a larger proportion of those who do pay could well afford to pay moro than the two guineas a week which they are now charged. If some method can be devised, as lias been done elsewhere, of giving these

people what they need, and making them pay adequately for it, it seems to us that the non-paying class of patient, so far from being prejudiced by such an arrangement, will he benefited by it. To talk, at this stage of our social development, of the "stigma" of being treated free of charge in a hospital, is pure nonsense. There is, in the first place, no stigma in being poor (though there is a good deal in

pretending poverty for the sake ' of I avoiding just obligations), and, in the second, the community has long ago accepted willingly the responsibility of; seeing that a person in ill-health shall ! not lack the best treatment available! merely because he or she cannot afford j to pay for it.