Objection to transfer of hospital control

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32678, 6 August 1971, Page 3

Objection to transfer of hospital control

(New Zealand Press Association)

GISBORNE, August 5.

Hospital boards, being subject to local pressures and prejudices, were unsuitable bodies to take over the wider powers envisaged by the Health Department, said the president of the Medical Association of New Zealand (Dr A. W. Douglas) today.

Dr Douglas was speaking at the conference of the Private Hospital’s Association, in Gisborne.

The department’s policy was to extend the powers of boards to enable them to take over the licensing of private hospitals, the transfer of licences, approval of their managers, the requiring and approval of alterations, and other similar powers, said Dr Douglas. In, addition, boards had been empowered to set up health centres, and it had been suggested that they ultimately take over the management of social security benefits and rebates. "In other words, it appears that hospital boards are to be made the centres of communits’ medicine for each area,” Dr Douglas said.

Hospital boards at present comprised locally-elected men and women who were public spirited, but not trained in medical administration, he said. They were unsuitable bodies to assume these wider powers.

The idea of transferring the licensing .of private hospitals from the Health Department to individual boards is oniy a suggestion at present, but delegates were doubtful about its wisdom. Although it was not necessarily an expression of “love and affection” for the Health Department, said the president of the Private Hospitals’ Association (Dr H.

H.' Gilbert), the conference’s reaction showed a certain amount of good will between the department and the association. The executive would watch further steps closely, he said. MOVE NOTED The Health Department clearly intended to function in the future purely as a ministry, having shed all its direct responsibilities in relation to hospitals of any kind, said the president of the Hospital Boards’ Association (Sir Edwin Bate). Licensing of private hospitals by boards was just one aspect of the increasing delegation of responsibility from the department to hospital boards, he said. “The boards’ association is on the verge of assuming total responsibility for all psychiatric hospitals in the country, which represents more than 10,000 occupied beds and a staff exceeding 6000," Sir Edwin Bate said. “We have already taken over all of the department’s maternity hospitals and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital at Rotorua.” Sir Edwin Bate said that within the next year or two a number of hospital board mergers were likely.

Entry refused.—The coastal tanker Seaboard has been refused permission to enter Whangarei Harbour in her present condition. The harbour authorities say that the ship must either be repaired in Tauranga to ensure that all her oil tanks are tight, or have her tanks thoroughly cleaned before coming to Marsden Point for repairs.— (PA.)