A HOSPITAL ISSUE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 122, 25 May 1928, Page 8

A HOSPITAL ISSUE

There is a possibility that the hospital issue raised at North may be. side-tracEed into a discussion, whether the board's policy has the support of the 'medical staff. Though this question is of importance, it doos not affect the greater question of principle raised, by Mr. M. A. Eli'ott—the extent to which the public hospitals should be reserved for the poor and indigent. We' trust'that this principle will not be overlooked. The • Minister of Health has affirmed that he is opposed to class distinctions, in the public hospitals. Wh'en the Palmcrston dispute is submitted to him, as the Borough Council proposes, he will be faced with the fact that such class distinctions can bo made indirectly by conditions which debar the well-to-do worn the public institutions, or discourage them from obtaining a reasonable benefit therefrom. This. problem cannot be avoided much longer. Already tho advance of medical science has made it impossible for p ivato hospitals, except in large centres of population, to offer to patients all that tho publicly-financ-ed institution can afford. Yet those | people who do not wiah to accept gratu-

itous professional services and are willing to pay a littlo more for privacy are in fact deterred from securing benofits which are freely available for their poorer neighbours. This may be a means of avoiding class distinctions within the hospitals, but it does so only by making a greater class distinction— that one class shall come in and others shall stay out.