KING GEORGE V. HOSPITAL

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 240, 11 July 1928, Page 11

KING GEORGE V. HOSPITAL

UNNECESSARY APPREHENSION INSTITUTION TO REMAIN OPEN “The apprehension' which is being expressed in Rotorua concerning the Health Department's intentions regarding the King George V. Hospital, is quite unfounded,” said the. Minister of Health (Hon. J. A. Young) yesterday. “The hospital is not being closed. All that, is being done is to ensure the avoidance of unnecessary expense in accepting patients for treatment from hospital districts which have the same facilities for giving orthopaedic treatments as exist at Rotorua. The hospital will still be available to patients from those districts which have not orthopaedic equipment.” The Minister explained that probably not more than a dozen patients a year would be affected by the Department’s decision. Since the hospital was originally opened to patients requiring orthopaedic treatment, some of the larger hospitals, principally Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, had been equipped with all the plant required for giving the treatment, and there was now no need for patients in these districts to go io Rotorua. Because of that fact, the Department hnd felt it was npt warranted in incurring the expense of maintaining a large stuff, and it had decided that admissions should be restricted to patients from hospital districts which did not have the necessary plant. Such patients would be received on the guarantee of the hospital board concerned that the expenses would be met. “In the past,” said the Minister, “it was found that a number of the patients did not fulfil the promises they made regarding the costs of treatment, and because of the absence of a board guarantee, the Department was forced to bear the full burden. . , , "Summed up, the position is that the unceasing watch of the Department on its expenditure, discloses that the maintenance of the King George V. Hospital at Rotorua at its full capacity constitutes an unnecessary duplication of the facilities for treatment in some of the patients’ own districts,” the Minister added. “Economy is being practised to the extent that the duplication of expense thus caused will be eliminated. The hospital will still be available at its full capacity should the Dominion be so unfortunate as to be visited again by such an epidemic of infantile paralysis as was experienced in 1919, and the summer of 1924-25.”