LESS TO SPEND

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 78, 29 September 1930, Page 7

LESS TO SPEND

HOSPITALS MUST SAVE

AUSTRALIAN COSTS

"Metropolitan hospitals must tighten their* belts and cut down expenditure," said the New- South Wales Minister of Health (Dr.. Arthur) at tho annual meeting of the Hospital Saturday Fund, a-eports the "Sydney Morning Herald." :"I was interested to read in the

'Herald'; the per bed costs of various institutions in Australia ana New Zea-v / land," ho added. "The general hospital at Auckland can manage on >£169 "per bed, and-the" Brisbane 'hospital, about the same size ■as the Sydney institution, is; run at about £45 per-bed a year less than our hospital. The only redeeming feature, is. that-the Melbourne Hospital is at the head of the list with a-tremendous expenditure. "These hospitals will'have to economise. I have been plainly:-.-told by the ; Treasurer; (Mr. Stevens) that I must "cut down, by enormous; amounts, expenditure on.the institutions under: my charge. 'I have been for days and days racking. my' brain to find how it.is to be. done.: But it must bo done. Apparently the Federal Government is beginning to realise the need for economy, too," Dr. Arthur then urged that the cost of motor accidents to hospitals should be' carefully investigated. "I noticed in the 'Herald' the other day," he added, "that a man was sentenced.to six months' imprisonment for taking a joy-ride in a car that was not !••»,' while the day before .two Magistrates in different parts of the State fined two drunken motorists only £15. One of the motorists had upset another ear and injured two people. That is simply 'encouragement to fill up the hospitals, with injured people. The sooner these Magistrates come to their senses the better."