COMMUNITY HOSPITALS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18121, 10 July 1924, Page 2

COMMUNITY HOSPITALS.

MOVEMENT IN SYDNEY.

(PBOM OUR OWN CORBESrOWD2!7T) SYDNEY, July 3. The fact that the fees charged by private hospitals are in many cases quite beyond the means of numbers of persons who are anxious for the comfort and privacy of such institutions is mainly responsible for a-movement in the big northern suburbs of Sydney, known generally as the North Shore, for the establishment of a community hospital. The idea, of course, is to provide for those who, not desirous of going into a public hospital, are yet unable to pay' the high fees charged generally by private hospitals—in short, the middle class. With an endowment or two and a Government grant, it is believed that a community hospital could easily be made self-supporting, with a few business heads at the back of it. As illustrating the need for such an institution, instances have been given of rates charged by some private hospitals. In a case where the operation was simply an exploratory one, ten guineas was charged merely for the use of the operating room. Then there is the case quoted of a patient who was charged for three bottles of brandy, when actually only three nips had been consumed. At an enthusiastic meeting at which the movement was launched, charges of six, seven, and eight guineas a week for ordinal nursing were condemned as unjust. Medical men as well as clergymen and other representative citizens are throwing their weight into the movement. What with the high cost of living, the high cost of being ill, and the high cost of dying, people are really in a bit of a quandary just now.