SOCIAL SECURITY SERVICES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27098, 22 July 1953, Page 8

SOCIAL SECURITY SERVICES

Reference To Rising Costs MR BARROWCLOUGH’S COMMENTS “Do we not have to visualise the Health Department having to say there is a ceiling, that the national income cannot afford more?” said the chairman of the Consultative Committee on Hospital Reform (Mr H. E. Barrowclough), when the rising costs of hospital administration were being discussed at the first Christchurch sitting of the committee yesterday. “If hospital boards were told that they had a certain amount to spend, as an absolute ceiling, cbuld they keep within that limit?” Mr Barrowclougn asked.

“No, not as long as the services expected of the' board have to be carried out,” said Mr W. H. Galbraith, secretary of the Nelson Hospital Board. “It comes to a matter of boards educating the public, that some services cannot be had for lack of cash,” Mr Barrowclough said. “If a board knew it started its year with an allocation, and that was as much as the country could afford, could the board not reorganise its expenditure and live within its means?” / .

“No,” said Mr Galbraith. “If a board found after it budgeted its allocation that some departments could not do it on that, it would take some time for reorganisation to be made and the public to be advised that that service would be discontinued. If you said, ‘From today we are not having an ambulance service because the money has been spent inside,’ you would still have an ambulance service there, and wages commitments. It would take some time for economies to be effected.”

Mr Barrowclough: Boards always expect the Minister to produce something more, when required, no matter how acute the financial situation might be.

Mr Galbraith: The Government introduced social security. Until the Government policy on social security changes, it is difficult to make hospital boards curtail the demand the public has been educated up to. “Could the economies of which you spoke be made in other aspects of the social security services?” asked Dr. P. C. E. Brunette, medical superintendent of the Nelson Hospital. , Mr Barrowclough: We have not been asked to inquire into that. It would be a happy solution. The suggestion had been made that although the public had been promised free hospital service, it should pay for its board and lodging in hospital, said Mr Barrowclough. Mr P. D. Tait, a member of the Nelson board, said he thought the board and lodging went with the hospital service.

Mr Barrowclough: In other words, there would be a revolution.