Value Of Health Service Defended

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31660, 22 April 1968, Page 10

Value Of Health Service Defended

A few simple changes are all that is needed to bring New Zealand’s health services back on an even keel, according to the New Zealand Medical Association.

An increase in the general medical service (the fee of 75c which the doctor receives from the Government for every patient consultation), the introduction of a specialist benefit, peripheral psychiatric care and a few nonmonetary reforms would be sufficient, says the association’s latest bulletin. “Without any great new outlay of money and without altering the basic structure, the health service would once more be made the best in the world.” Was there anything in the Medical Association of New Zealand argument that the health service had become too costly to maintain? In 1935, the cost per hospital in-patient was $34; in 1966, this had risen to $2OO. But in the same time the value of money had decreased to one quarter of its 1935 value. In terms of present-day money, the cost of an inpatient had therefore gone up by 50 per cent from $136 to $2OO. “Does this represent an intolerable drain on our resources, or is it an economic-

ally justified increase? the association asks. The 300,000 in-patients stayed an average of 14 days while in 1935, the stay was 22 days.” The saving in patients time must be worth at least half of the extra $3O million which we spent on hospitals in 1966. “But more important, how did patients leave hospital at the end of their 22-day stay in 1935—feet first or on their own pins?” By 1935 standards, 1000 people, mainly young people, should have died of tuberculosis in 1966. The actual figure was 150, most of them elderly. What was the economic value of 850 young people, of 150 young mothers who did not die of puerperal sepsis in 1966, of 1000 infants who would have died in 1966 if standards of hospital care were at the 1935 level? What New Zealand paid for its health service was a small price for the economic benefits which it derived from them. The health service saved the country money, and to argue we could not afford to save money was insane.