HOSPITAL AFFAIRS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 143, 13 December 1940, Page 6

HOSPITAL AFFAIRS

(To the Editor.) , Sir, —The sins—active and passive, ancient and modern—of the Welling<ton Hospital Board seem to have suddenly come to light, and are being widely exposed in terms hardly remarkable for gentleness—or even fairness. The board services have been given gratuitously, and some of its members have served the public for a great number of years faithfully and well. Now, all this is liable to have a damaging effect on the hospital management itself, which, in my opinion, is certainly not deserved. Despite the fact that the war has depleted both the medical and nursing staffs the treatment meted out today is good and I can speak from actual personal experience extending over several weeks. The attention given by the nurses day and night is indeed beyond praise, and compares favourably with that at certain of the provincial public hospitals. That the Wellington Hospital has been fully taxed in recent times I quite believe, but that this state prevails at the present time is hardly borne out by experience—as you, Mr. Editor, can easily verify.-In one ward, capable of holding 50 patients, at the moment there is only one; in Dr. Kemp's annexe for convalescents (said in the report to be designed for 23 patients) at the present moment there are only four, and so far as I know, the other wards are by no means overtaxed. The board has put in excellent work in the past as the present magnificent pile at the central hospital verifies, with all its modern and varied equipment Let us try and be fair. Outside of Wellington its public hospital enjoys a high reputation.—l am, etc., No. 32. [The criticism voiced by "The Post" has not been directed at the medical and nursing services of the hospital, but at the plans made for extending accommodation. As to its fairness, it has been based upon official docuaients, including the report of the retiring medical superintendent, showing that the hospital was seriously overcrowded, and the return of architectural work, revealing that heavy expense and delay had occurred through the ■ change and abandonment of plans.—Ed.3