Nurses’ Registration Bill

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 19, 17 October 1930, Page 11

Nurses’ Registration Bill

Sir, —Your correspondent, “Aka-Kiore,” seems to be very ignorant of the subject she writes about. The reciprocal agreement of New Zealand registered nurses with the English Council is not a small matter, and the Minister of Health was right in safeguarding this in every way. Then the idea of drawing the “paying” patients away from the public hospitals is really funny. There are no “paying” patients in our public hospitals in the sense that the cost of their maintenance is fully met. Public hospital charges vary from 4/- to 12/- per day, whereas the cost per patient per day is about 16/-. Thus every patient in a public hospital costs the taxpayers from 4/- to 12/- per day. Even “Aka-Kiore,” who seems to write with bias, will see that it would be no monetary loss to\the taxpayers if all sick people went into private hospitals. As for the religious denominations running hospitals, why shouldn’t they? In every country in the world they do. Some of the finest hospitals in Canada and America are run by the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Anglicans. The command of the Master was to look after the sick, and it must be a very starved, un-Christian soul that would put difficulties in the way of any church organ’sation doing this humanitarian work. —I am. etc., COMMON-SENSE. Wellington, October 14,