HOSPITAL AND HEALTH

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 111, 13 May 1938, Page 8

HOSPITAL AND HEALTH

One of the main arguments against the heavy commitments involved in the proposals for the expansion of Wellington Hospital, at an estimated cost of £750,000, is that the present overcrowded condition of the existing wards is abnormal and due to circumstances that may be altered greatly for the better as time goes on. In his evidence before the Hospital Commission yesterday, the Town Clerk of Wellington (Mr. E. P. Norman) emphasised this point when he said;

The average number of beds occupied in 1928-29 was 584.7 and the number in 1937-38 was 707.8, an increase of about 21 per cent, in ten years, or an average of 2 per .cent, per annum. The population i» increasing at the rate \of a little under 1 per cent, per annum. These figures show that the average amovmt of hospital treatment per person is increasing, and indicate the need for inquiry into this aspect, 80 that sickness may be reduced and with it the financial liabilities of' providing hospital accommodation.

An important contributory cause of this increase in hospital treatment was suggested by the City Engineer (Mr, K. Luke) in his testimony later:

. It is contended, he said, that, due to the housing shortage and overcrowded conditions of private dwelling and apartment units, many people may now be forced to be sent by their medical advisers to hospital who in the past would have been treated in their own homes.

Also, Mr. Luke added, these same people might be retained longer in the hospital during convalescence on the advice of their medical advisers, who in most cases had intimate knowledge of the conditions under which their patients were| living. The improved housing con- j ditions, contemplated by both the' Government and the local authority should tend to relieve any overcrowding at the public hospital due to the causes outlined. To this prospect of amelioration might be added the probable effect of the campaign to be undertaken under the Physical Welfare and Recreation Act by the National Sj>orts Council, which will hold its first meeting on May 24. The improvement in the general hfalth of the people envisaged from these influences would relieve pressure on hospital accommodation and to that extent reduce 'the scale of the expansion contemplated under present abnormal conditions. .:' •