CORRESPONDENCE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3130, 14 August 1922, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor. Sir. As Hospital matters have been receiving considerable prominence in the local press, I wish to place before your leaders some facts which have an obvious bearing on hospital management and expenditure. These facts are gleaned from the[register of the Dunstan Hospital and the last return issued by the Health Dept, being that for the year ending March 31st, 1921. As it is not within my province to take up a controversial standing in this matter, I will merely state facts and leave it to your readers te draw their own conclusions. In the year mentioned the maintenance cost per occupied bed in the Dunstan Hospital was £lB3 Bs, and was lower than that of any other hospital in the same class (10-20 occupied beds per day. It was also lower than that of 7a per cent of the hospitals of the Deminion. In the same year 91 patients were admitted to hospital, 34 operations requiring an anjcsthetic;were performed and there were 10. 8 occupied beds per day. In the year 1908, one of the years when hospital expenditure was low, 28 patients were admitted, 4 anaesthetics were given, and there were 1.6 occupied beds per day. 1 am ate, R. B. Turnbull, Medical Supt.. Dunstan Hospital. Clyde, August nth, 1922.