HOSPITAL FEES

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 55, 29 November 1923, Page 5

HOSPITAL FEES

Sir.—Tn vour issue of this morning’s Dominion, there appears an item dealing with “Hospital Fees.” which cads for the series attention cf the citizens of Wellington. The manner in which the Hospital Board has decided to solve the difficulty of unpaid hospital fees, is, ,to say the least, humiliating and barbarous. Neither is it a “business-like thing to do.” If it is. then business is a sordid and inhuman mode of. life. It would be a far better thing to condemn the present inefficient method of our hospital system, and look round for one which would be more in keeping with the noble social service it involves. rather than to degrade it by association with the vicious system of

professional dtebt collecting. The £70.000 outstanding does not represent the wilful evasion of payment of fees, as much as it does the poverty of the people compelled to undergo hospital treatment. In an enlightened community. hospital treatment will be as free as the dust cart. Inmates of hospitals are not thebe for holiday jaunts, they mostly endure much pain and suffering. and if. at such a time, the suggestions such as have been advocated are to ho employed, many poor patients will find it an easier and happier lot to die. The principle of employing private debt-collecting agencies, in any form whatever, to do the work of a public institution like the Hospital Board, is open to the gtavert abuse. The “Commercial Agency” (the name is full of possibilities), will endeavour to make its tefforts as profitable as it can. It can only do so by harassing, not only those who can pay, but those who are already too impoverished to take more out of the family wane. It is to Mr. Chapman’s credit that he opposed the monstrous proposal.—T am. etc.. T. BRINDLE.