COST OF HOSPITAL SERVICES

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28936, 2 July 1959, Page 12

COST OF HOSPITAL SERVICES

System Expensive And Complex “The Press” Special Service WELLINGTON, July 1. In New Zealand it costs approximately £5OOO to provide a general hospital bed including the essential associated services of radiology, pathology, theatres, staff accommodation, engineering and steam. The consultative commission on pre-school health services was told this by Dr. C. H. Taylor, director of the Hospitals Division of the Health Department. Dr. Taylor described hospital services in New Zealand as ‘‘expensive and complex.” The comparable figure for a maternity bed which included an infant cot was approximately £7OOO.

No nation could afford to build and maintain hospital beds for the concept of usage which was accepted even 20 years ago, he said.

Genera] concepts of hospital usage internationally accepted were broadly—maximum use of available beds: minimum stay of patients: maximum development and use of out-patients service and clinics.

The importance of children's units being asociated with general hospitals was emphasised so that many of the expensive services such as radiology and pathology might be shared, and so that pediatricians might have contact with medical colleagues. It could be stated that additional children’s beds had not been required in New Zealand commensurate with the increased child population. With a numerical increase in the available maternity beds, there had been also a growing strength on the staffs of hosuital boards., of specially qualified obstetricians and pediatricians available as consultants. The greatest share of the care of premature infants throughout New Zealand was being carried by hospital board institutions. Most premature infants were born in maternity institutions of hospital boards. Most of these infants . received their medical attention and nursing care till I they were firmly established.