EXPERT ADVICE.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18626, 26 February 1926, Page 14

EXPERT ADVICE.

TO HOSPITAL BOARDS, PROVES 'UNWELCOME. SIR LINDO FERGUSON IS CANDID

(6FECJJW. 10 "THE THESS.") DUNEDIN, February 25. There was a flutter at the Hospital Board conference after Sir Lindo Ferguson and Dr. Unwin had addressed the delegates on "hospital staffing." Sir Lindo in particular was rather critical of Hospital Boards, especially in relation to the medical profession, and at the conclusion of their addresses several Auckland representatives and Palmerston North delegates rather heatedly attacked both medicos for the opinions they had expressed. Sir Lindo Ferguson stated that the British Mqdical Association had authorised him to address the gathering on tho subject, and had given him a free, hand as to what ho had to say. The profession, he said, considered that the primary consideration was not looking after the pockets of the ratepayers, but of attending to the needs of the public. They were very apt merely to looh on hospitals as buildings. But although good buildings were desirable, and a duty was oast upon the Boards to get them, he would like to emphasise that they were not its greatest consideration. Everything depended on the staff, and he might say that the medical staff was the whole hospital. If an earthsunke razed their hospital buildings to the ground, the next morning they would be able to carry on in tents on sandhills, providing, of course, that the staff were not wiped out, too.

As long as they had a good staff, they would have a good hospital, tut unfortunately they bad Boards who did riot realise their duties to the profession. Hg contended that institutions should be post graduate schools and afford facilities for the profession to improve itself. There were cases in which some Boards' had laid it down that only certain medical msn should have access to the hospitals. Ho contended that there was no body more incompetent than a lay Board to judge of the value of a medical man's services. In the appointment of a medical staff the Board's judgment was not worth anything, and he alleged that in some caßes Boards had never sought the advice of exports. Hospital Boards owed a duty to the medical profession, and a duty to the people who were paying rates, but not making use of the institutions. If medical men were shut out,,then the profession as a whole must suffer as well as the public.

"The Greatest Menace." As a member of the Board of Health, he had various problems brought before him, bat if he'were asked what was the greatest menace to the community Jie would say Hospital Boards. (Laughter.) Dealing with the honorary system, Sir Lindo stated that the chairman in his address had stated that the freo admission of everyone would do away with that. On a moderate estimate, he considered that the amount given in honorary services, represented a sum which was more than the whole amount realised from rates, for hospital services. He considered that the honorary staff had good grounds for consideration, but he was safe in saying that there was no other work which they enjoyed so much as this. They probably put their best efforts into it. They did not want any payment if a patient was not in a position to pay. If the Board tqld him that he would have to take an honorarium, ho would say that in the whole forty-sis years of his hospital service he had never taken a penny for such work, ajid that the honorarium would have to go elsewhere) but he did not want to see medical men exploited and taken advantage of by those who were too mean to pay. He gave it as his opinion that it would not be in the interests of surgeons if a stipendiary system were to replace the honorary one.

About Paying Wards. Dealing with suggestions that had been put forward for paying wards. Sir Lindo Ferguson said that if they had a paying section, every reputable medical man should be allowed to follow hits patients into the hospital. Dr. Unwin said that they regarded hospital patients as their first consideration. They wanted all patients going to hospitals to pay maintenance and medical fees if that were possible, and were anxious that community hospitals should bo the- centre of modical activity. In smaller districts hospitals could serve a very useful purpose in that doctors who now had few opportunities of reviewing other medical men's work would be able to do so, as well as to discuas various matters of primary importance to the profession. Many of the present small " hospitals were very expensive, and no check was kept on the work that was done, Jfe considered that there wore too many operations at the present time, and he blamed the present system for this state of affairs.

Representatives of Boards, especially of Auckland and Palmo'rston North, made vigorous defences of Jieir administration, and expressed a little resentment at Sir Lindo Ferguson's remarks. Sir Lindo Eerguson said ho did not want to specify any particular Board, but he knew of one case where an ex : penanced man had been turned out of his appointment in order to make way for a friend of the chairman of the Board. Ho could give another instance of whore a surgeon had been replaced by a lodgo doctor.-