REVISION URGED
Private hospital subsidies (N.Z. Press Association) GISBORNE, Aug. 4. A revised and equitable social security benefit to the private hospital patient was needed urgently, said the president of the Private Hospitals’ Association (Dr H. H. Gilbert) at the association’s conference in Gisborne today. The 1969 increase in the patient benefit was totally absorbed by this time last year, and there had been none since, he said. Since 1959 the subsidy to patients in private hospitals had shown a maximum rise of only $4.60, whereas in public hospitals the daily cost a bed had risen from $7 to $2l and was still rising. The factors causing the increase applied to private hospitals too.
Repeated increases in fees had reached the point where consumer resistance and falling bed occupancy rates were inevitable, said Dr Gilbert
“In 1953 the Barraclough Report said the social security benefit to private patients fell short of plain justice, but the relative position in 1971 is worse.”
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32677, 5 August 1971, Page 2
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161REVISION URGED Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32677, 5 August 1971, Page 2
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