PRESS COMMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 105, 4 May 1926, Page 8

PRESS COMMENTS

"THE MINISTER'S OUTBURST"

Following are some Press editorial comments on the statements of the Minister of Health on hospital policy and administration, and the protests made by members of the New Zealand branch pi the British Medical Association:— If we consider what Dr. MacEachern'a suggestions wore, wo are less able to understand the Minister's outburst. There were three main suggestions. One that the number of main hospitals was excessive. We have heard Mr. Young s predecessors and his Department officers say the same thing, so it cannot be here that he finds Dr. MacEaehern at fault. The second suggestion was that of paying wards. Thiscsurely cannot be a suggestion which should arouse the Minister's anger. It is apparently one that is calculated to ease the burden of taxation, and so should meet with his approval. The last of the three suggestions was that the services of an honorary staff should be taken advantage of. We believe most of the hospitals in the Dominion are run on these lines, but some of the smaller hospitals are not. Medical opinion generally has been in favour of this plan, and the Department has hitherto been understood to approve of it. It does not affect the question that in some cases hospitals are well conducted on other gystems. Does Mr. Young mean that the general public are better qualified than trained men or his. departmental oflicers to decide sivh a question. We confess we are puzzled. Dr. MacEaehern's views seemed to us to be moderately expressed and to be in line with the view generally held in the Dominion. We do not wonder that the medical profession is alarmed at the Minister's statement. •—"Hawkes Bay Herald." In the past political interests have played too prominent a part in the creation of hospital districts, with the result that some of the smaller boards have difficulty in maintaining the institutions under their control. The matter is one which must bo viewed from a national rather than a local standpoint, and it is the duty of the Minister and his officers to place the national aspect prominently before the various boards. Success lies in the closest co-operation between the departmental heads and those entrusted' ■with the task of local administration.— "Lyttelton Times." STATE Or WAR NOT DESIRABLE. The public do not want to see a state ©£ war set up between the Hospitals Department and the medical profession, and probably enough a large number of citizens are regretting that the Minister has seeu fit to strike such an uncompromising attitude. The Minister could have sounded an equally effective note of watchfulness without Tunning to hostility. Surely the sympathy and co-operation of the medical profession are worth cultivating. The sooner a departure is made from the

present state of antagonism the better for the public interest; and it should not be difficult to get to friendly ground on the strength of the assurance given by the heads of the New Zealand branch of the B.M.A. that the medical profession has no desire to interfere with the business and financial aspects of hospital control, but considers that upon professional matters it could give useful assistance to the boards. —"Marlborough Express." It is certainly difficult to see any inconsistency between the maintenance of the present democratic system of control and the variation of the character of the public hospitals by the introduction of the pay-ward system. The persons who would use the private ards are already contributing to the cost of hospital maintenance through the payment of rates and taxes, and are not using the public hospitals. Nor is the point to be ignored that the community hospital of the type favoured by Dr. MacEachern would be expected to attract patients from all sections of the community, and not from the poorer class only. There is no overwhelming reason, so far as wo can see, for concluding that the viewpoint of the Minister of Health, at least so far as he has expressed it, is necessarily irreconcilable with that taken by Dr. MacEachern and the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association with respect, at all events, to .the administrative side of the hospital system.— "Otago Daily Times." "REGRETTABLE." It is regrettable that the new Minister of Health, before he has hardly become accustomed to a seat in the Cabinet, should have assumed such an air of superiority in regard to the very valuable report of Dr. MacEachern on hospital policy and administration. It is not difficult to see through the Ministerial tactics, since it is only totf patent that Mr. Young has ranged himself on tile side of departmental obstinacy, and is throwing out a smoke screen to hide his real state of mind. It has never been suggested that the control of the hospitals of the Dominioa should pass out of the hands <of the people. Mr.. Young, is simply baying at the moon! Doubtless certain types of hospital administrators of the parish pump order resented the intrusion of distinguished authorities from the older countries. But if Mr. Young is prepared to listen to the tiino servers who are constitutionally opposed to reform of any description, ho will very soon convince the people that in making a change in the Ministerial head of the Health Department, a jump has been made out of the frying pan into the fire. If the new Minister cares to investigate the system and administration in his own Department, and turns a deaf oar to the departmental sirens ho will quickly discover that the report of Dr. MacEachern furnishes him with the basis of a progressive hospital policy which would bring nothing but excellent results. . . . The Miinster must realise, if he deigns to give the question a moment's i nsideration, that the New Zealand hospital system and administration is due for a thorough overhaul. The distinguished hospital authority who recently visited these shores, certainly did offer some comment on hospital control, but he did not, as the Minister insinuates, suggest that control of the hospitals of the Dominion should pass from the hands of the people. "As-one commentator said in reply to the Minister's first petty outburst: 'Such a Minister might have been expected to give an exceptionally hearty welcome to so striking an opportunity, as that presented by Dr. MaeEaehern 's report for pressing the moral homo and in using it to lay a grateful emphasis on points of agreement and, if not to pass lightly over the others, at any rate to refrain from giving them such prominence as to convey the impression of a general dissent." But for a newly fledged member of the Cabinet to indulge in a sweeping, reckless, and deplorably dogmatic negative does not in any way depreciate the value of Dr. MacEachern's report, but rather discounts the Minister while indefinitely postponing the coming «of the urgently needed • reform which a Minister with a new broom at the head of the Department of Health, was expected to promote.' " —"Timaru Herald." •' BUREAUCRATIC DEPARTMENT RESENTS INTERFERENCE.'' "Those people who have followed the dispute between the new Minister of Health and the medical profession concerning hospital administration may have wondered what is the real cause of the quarrel," states the Christchurch "Press." "It began with some remarks by the Minister concerning the report of Dr. Malcolm MacEachern, the eminent American surgeon who recently visited New Zealand at the instance of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association to investigate and report upon hospital administration and hospital practice. This, at any rate, was the public opening of hostilities, but for the true origin of the quarrel we should perhaps look a little further back and a little behind the scenes, where we should probably find a Health Department highly incensed at the idea that anybody but itself should seek to influence public opinion. Dr.,,MacEachern made a rapid survey of our hospitals, and made a report— not to the Government —which contained many good suggestions, and which was at the least the honest opinion of a surgeon of high distinction. Within a week the Minister took notice of this report in a speech which was a loud blast of defiance to any gang of doctors who might use a foreigner to lever the Department and the democracy out of their places and hand over the control of the hospitals to the medical profession. While professing 'anxiety to lcara all we can from America or any other part of the world,' the Minister made it plain that ho has resolved that there is nothing to learn." "There is nothing in Dr. MacEachern's report to justify this suggestion that the doctors desire to obtain control of the hospitals, as Dr. Gibbs, of Wellington, indignantly reminded the Minister, but they do think that they have ideas which could be adopted to the advantage of the hospitals and the public. To Dr. Gibba's rebuke the Minister replied, in a speech reported in yesterday's paper in a manner which is quite inexcusable, unless there are facts to support him-which have not been disclosed. The 8.M.A., he said, is angry with him because he did not throw his arms around Dr. MacEachern's nock and accept everything he said. The truth is that the B.M.A. was angry because the Minister, without the least excuse, imputed to it and intention which it disclaims. He added that he was not above accepting anything useful in Dr. MacEachern's report, but 'when anyone attempted to dictate to him or to put pressure on him, or to work propaganda, or to undermine the powers of hospital boards, the Department, or the people, he would be up in arms.' Here, we believe, we have tho root of the trouble, which is, a bureaucratic Department's resentment of any 'interference, ' in the way of suggestion or criticism, with its power to do what it pleases in its own way. The Minister is very unwise in adopting this attitude, for although the democracy values its'rights and powers and liberties, it does not believe unquestioningly that they will be lost if the public Departments are denied tho attributes of infallibility and omnipotence. As a matter of fact, the public has in all countries in modern times acquired a wholesale distrust of the bureaucrats, and in tho case of the Health Department that distrust will not be lessened by the attitude of the Minister towards Dr. MacEachern'B report."