CURSE OF POLITICS

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18677, 28 April 1926, Page 11

CURSE OF POLITICS

IN HOSPITAL POLICY. "The curs© of hospital policy in New Zealand is politics, 1 ' says the "Now Zealand Medical Journal" editorially. "Politics multiply tho number of hospital districts, not in tho interests of: patients, but for political reasons. Ministers ,of the Crown in charge of hospital administration come and go with the turn of the political wheel, and. they cannot raise hospital policy out of the political arena. Can a Minister tackle the solution of a uniform policy of hospital staffing, or are local < prejudices and predilections to prevail haphazard? What is good for Wanganui cannot be bad for Hamilton. When two systems are diametrically opposed, one _ must be better than the other. Medical men will generally agree that to place a good hospital of 50 beds or more under tho full control of a more or less inexperienced ■ doctor, with the help, perhaps, of a house' Burgeon, to, exclude the Services of good experienced men practising in the district, to . prevent, co-operation and emulation, is to do a grave wrong to the . people, some of them unthinking, who go as : pa,tignts t6 Such ,a ' hospital; If . the I great majority ■of medical men are wrong in this, opiniort, they are surely entitled to be set right by the Department or the Boards, or whatever,persons are. the authors of a system,.which is condemned in every progressive country in the world; • Let this policy be justified or else swept away, but not ignored. Much, useful reform of the, present hospital system, which is in I some ways' admirably can now, bo offected by the co-operation of the , Department,; the. Boards, and the medical profession. The new Minister of.Health gives promise of progressive ideas'; the' Department' has declared .itself far-: bur of innovations of far-roaching effect,' hospital development' has now,be- : come a public qUMtioii,. and suifely within this year, into which we have, not very, far entered we shall have some practical .outcome :to all ,the thought and discussion' which have cen-' tred upon the hospitals of this try.; • The medical profession; as 'experts in the treatment of. the. sick, - Willi :be. false to, itself and to-its v traditions if it allows in silence any considerations, political or, otherwise_,'to set a' limit to continued:progress in hospital' as well as iii private practice." *