HOSPITAL DAY

Evening Star, Issue 22952, 9 May 1938, Page 1

HOSPITAL DAY

ANNUAL NATIONAL OBSERVANCE i National Hospital Day was observed yesterday, when a special service waa held at Knox Church in the evening. There was a large attendance, including nurses from the Hospital and memmembers of the medical profession. The Rev. D. C. Herron conducted the service, and the lesson was read by Mr J. W. Dove, chairman of the Hospital’ Board. A solo, ‘ Life’s Balcony,’ was sung by Nurse Eggleton, and the anthem ‘ O Gladsome Light ’ was • contributed by the choir. The address was given by Dr W. J. Mullin, who spoke of the growth of the hospital movement, its setbacks and from, the start of Christianity until modern times. He concluded with an earnest appeal to the congregation to do all possible for the institutions which cared for the sick and suffering. The hospital, as they knew it—a place of refuge for the sick and injured—Dr Mullin said, was not known in Scriptural times, but its great development came in with the growth of Christianity. At first, when the Christians of the Roman Empire were mostly slaVes and poor people, nothing could be done, but when Christianity became the official religion and the church grew rich and powerful, a great deal was done. The religious houses received the sick and infirm poor people and the monks were the physicians and surgeons, some of them attaining to very great surgical skill. The Reformation in Britain made a great difference to the status of the monastic hospital. Indeed, in Scotland the Reformation was of such a thorough-going nature that in stamping out religious orders they generally _ succeeded in stamping out the hospitals which the monks had maintained. Although Henry VIII. dissolved the religious orders the hospitals in England were generally retained and managed by the borough and city authorities. There were in London five principal hospitals —the Royal hospitals—all originally religious foundations, and the majority of them existed to-day. The seventeenth century, the century of the Stuarts, Dr Mullin continued, did very little for the hospitals, but in the following century decency and morality came mto favour again and rich men started to build and endow institutions. Edinburgh reawakened in 1730 and had her earliest infirmary building completed between 1736 and 1756, -Glasgow following at the end of the century. Unfortunately populations became denser and accidents and operations multiplied; septic infections became alarmingly frequent,; hospital gangrene and erysipelas spread in the wards, till patients began to look upon a transfer to the hospital as "a sentence of death. But the darkest hour was just before the dawn. Anaesthetics abolished the, pain of operations, and the discovery of' antiseptic treatment abolished the danger of sepsis, while the use of germicides meant that operations now became safe and gangrene began to be a thing of the past. “What can we do for hospitals?”' Dr Mullin asked. “ The great and famous hospitals of England were voluntary institutions. They were maintained, not by the Government or the local bodies, but by subscriptions, bene-factions-by will and endowments by wealthy people. Our New Zealand hospitals are maintained by local rates along with a central Government subsidy. And we consider that they are rightly a charge on organised society. Voluntary subscriptions are levied mainly on the generous and goodnatured, but the tax collector calls on. the just and unjust alike and takes from all in proportion to their means. What, then, can we do for our hospitals?'

“First, we can pay our rates not grudgingly and of necessity, but cheerfully, even joyfully, knowing in what way our money is to be expended. When our taxes have been paid, if anything remains in Our treasury we can subscribe to the Patients and Prisoners’ Aid Society, or the St. John Ambulance. We can help the Janies Powell Rest Home and l other institutions which take up the task where tba hospitals leave off. We can visit our friends in hospital when they need visitors, and we can stay away when they do not. We can see that the best men are elected to the Hospital (Board,, not because they belong to this or that political party, but because they are men who have the interest of the patient at heart. For the welfare of the patient is the most important thing in hospital management. And when we have done the best in our power for these guests of ours—the sick and the suffering—we will find, I hope, that we have entertained angels unawares.’!