OUR HOSPITALS AND HEALTH

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 172, 21 April 1928, Page 13

OUR HOSPITALS AND HEALTH

Sir,—There has been some considerable amount" of talk about hospital policy of late. Tt would, therefore, seem to be appropriate to examine the position occupied by our hospitals in the actual relationship to health, or shall we say disease? The following is a broad survey of the position during recent years, taken from the New Zealand Offit'ial Year Book: During the years 1919-23 (inclusive), the general hospital population of New' Zealand was 230,000 (or 46,000, average per year). 192-1, 58,600 (43-4 per 141,000 population). 1925, 61,500 (-145 per 10,000 population). 1926, 68,000 (484 per 10,000 population). Out-patients during 1926 totalled 66,000. We learn that New Zealanders lost in 1926 260,0-0 weeks all told in sickness, or the equivalent of one day per each unit of population. The in-patients alone totalled three times the population required to make a city! Patients in mental hospitals, of which there are eight):—• 1925, 5257. 1926, 5467. That is, New Zealand Ims more than the population of a borough certified a* insane. The position regarding that even now almost "unmentionable" venereal disease, is as follows, the figures being only for in-patients. There is, unfortunately, no guide to, the totality of this disease, so the following figures must be taken only as a "skeleton indf-x” at the best:—Venereal disease; 1921, 491- cases; 1924, 781 cases; 1925 819 cases; 1926, 1002 eases. " In addition to all these statistics, wo know very well there tire many nundreds of sub-norn al, imbecile, and epileptic cases outsid our institutions altogether. Dr. S. A. Moore, of Dunediip estimated there as being, in 1925, 1467 (under sixten years of age only). Naw, sir. these figures are nothing more than just a mere dispassionate survey made up of hard matter of fact estimates. Can we for a single moment regard them us bein'? satisfactory for a country hardly yet more than two generations old in our "civilisation”? Is it not more than time public opinion was informed of the trra position? New Zealand cannot afford on any account to tolerate this unf irtunate incidence of disease. The loss to the country in this “suspended” pop: mtion must be well nigh stupendous. But I leave it to economists to work out the actual position. In the meantime, every effort s'»uld be made to awaken our apathetic "public opinion” to the true state of affairs.—T am. etc., R. M. THOMSON. Auckland, April 17.