The road toll

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32461, 23 November 1970, Page 14

The road toll

Sir,—lf what your correspondent, Mr A. B. MacKenzie, writes is correct, then it seems the Hospital Board is competing with private surgical practice. This surely is very tough on people like my motherin-law who is really crippled with her arthritis and has been waiting a long time to get into a public hospital. Could we be told how much money is made in a year by the hospital by charging these fees? Do they have any plans to help people like this?—Yours, etc., DEPRESSED MILK VENDOR.

November 5, 1970. [Dr L. C. L. Averill, chairman of the North Canterbury Hospital Board, replies: “I think I can reassure your correspondent that the Hospital Board has no intention of entering into competition with private hospitals in the treatment of accident cases. All such cases are naturally brought in the first instance to the accident and emergency department at the Christchurch Hospital, where their immediate condition is assessed and treated. By law, free treatment as a charge against social security hospital benefits does not extend to patients who have the right to claim against another party for the cost of their treatment. As a result, the board is bound to claim against insurance companies and others in workers’ compensation and accident cases where the negligence of someone other than the patient has contributed to the accident In such cases it seems hardly reasonable that the taxpayer should be expected to relieve insurance companies of responsibilities which they have contracted to provide. So far as the waiting list is concerned, the latest published figures show a considerable decline over the last 18 months, and the board is fully conscious of the need to do everything in its power to reduce waiting times to a minimum."]