HALF-MILLION HEALING UNITS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 23, 27 July 1933, Page 10

HALF-MILLION HEALING UNITS

i The,cost per bed of an economic-ally-built general' hospital seems to be roughly comparable with the cost 'per room of a first-class'hotel. This statement is on the authority of Mr. Robert Atkinson as reported in "The Listener,'1' and applies to modern building in English conditions. He states that the most'economical size for a general hospital is 600 to 1000 beds, costing, "if cheaply constructed," £800 to £1000 per bed, "but usually much more"; while "a first-class hotel with a bath to every bedroom costa £iOOO per room." Such a general hospital means therefore an expenditure of L at least half a million, without ,'fcounting the ,cost of the site. The alarming thing is that, whereas a first-class hotel is a private responsibility built to pay its Way, a hospital is a public responsibility that generally 'does not pay its way. How many half-million hospitals can the public of ,any country afford in the present state of ojver-indebtedne'ss, and with the progressive increase in street accidents resulting from speed traffic? In English conditions Mr. Atkinson expects' rapid evolution from the one-storey straggling hospital to the manystoreyed type, and instances a new six-seyen storeyed block in Birmingham. "Vertical concentration" gets rid of "wasteful horizontal expansion." The structure and the floors should be permanent, with "internal reconstruction every twenty years" to nieet scientific change. ; An instance of the latter is radiological equipment Hospital provision is only one section of the community burden, yet in itself is sufficient to challenge the whole theory that unlimited public debt can be handed down to posterity. Even if there had been no war, that theory was piling up accounts that must sooner or later have challenged its validity.