Wider aspects of health care

Press, 16 September 1976, Page 15

Wider aspects of health care

PA Wellington Hospital boards are showing a growing realisation of the need to extend their services outside institutions under their control into the community, according to the annual report of the Health Department, tabled in Parliament this week.

“There is an increasing awareness by hospital boards of the wider aspects of health care,” the report said.

In the field of community care of the mentally subnormal, a significant step forward had been made as a result of discussions between the

Social Welfare and Health Departments and the Society for the Intellectually Handicapped. Hospital Boards had been authorised to build hostels and workshops in approved areas, using funds provided from the health vote, the society running and staffing the facilities. The report refers to the rpoblems of the extent to which highly specialised national or regional units — such as cardiac units and facilities for renal dialysis and kidney transplantation — should proliferate.

“This has been the subject of debate during the year by hospital boards concerned and by the department and the Hospitals Advisory Council,” the report said. These units, expensive to establish, equip, and staff, tend to absorb a higher proportion of a board’s annual maintenance grant than the number of patients treated would, to some, appear to warrant.”

The cost of establishing and running health centres had also concerned the department, said the report. Several difficulties had arisen between tenants, hospital boards, and the department as regards rental, staffing, and equipment. It was considered necessary not only to iron out these problems but to try to evaluate the benefits of health centres in terms of primary health care.

The Minister of Health had approved the appointment of a Health Centre Advisory Council, with

wide terms of reference, to report on the establishment and working of these centres, said the report. Until this committee reported, only committed projects would proceed beyond the planning stage., The report said that increased attention to the supervision of infants, pre-school, and school children highlighted the need for public health nurses to improve clinical expertise in this field. Short post-basic technical institute courses in community health nursing were resulting in improved knowledge and skill in this and other areas of nursing. Nursing staff had been more readily available for public health nursing services during the year — an improvement which related to the over-all increase in the number of nurses seeking employment and possibly to the greater interest shown in the preventive aspects of health care.

Interim reports on the experimental employment of health assistants in the Auckland, South Auckland, and Wellington health districts showed that these staff members were able to undertake many tasks which did not require ■medical judgment and so conserved" the time of health professionals. The .report said that the department was developing a programme to improve the planning, delivery, and evaluation of community health services.