Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1940. HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATION.

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 December 1940, Page 6

Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1940. HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATION.

pOR good or ill, and in due course, the effect of the Social Security scheme on public hospitals, must be to bring these more under direct State departmental control, less being left to district initiative. The more the efficiency r ‘ displayed by local Boards, the less cause will there be to . lessen their privileges. Susceptibilities of Board members or members. of the staff will not be given the consideration from Wellington headquarters as is too frequently forthcoming to-day, and anything suggestive of “Rafferty rule” will meet with prompt censure, not platitudinous recommendations. Hospital administration, likex most other local body management, is an ever-increasing “big business,” with huge sums annually-involved. Methods of administration adequate in earlier day's, are not so, to-day. The public, who have to supply the money, directly and indirectly,’ will demand utmost efficiency, and postwar economy needs will enforce a check on too easy spending. The Grey Hospital has received a bad advertisement throughout I the Dominion, in connection with the delayed burial of a comparatively friendless returned soldier. There has been much discussion recently in the district about the affair, regarding which publication was inadvisable, until some official statement was forthcoming. This should have been made promptly, but it was not until the Board met last evening, a month after the regrettable incident, that the public were taken into the Board’s confidence. The chairman (Mr. J.

Mulcare) denounced “lying and malicious rumours;” —as he was entitled to, —but any of these would have been short-lived had he spoken earlier. The Board appears to be making secrecy a habit. Most of its work is taken

“in committee,” and. its open meetings make available little information for the public, who have a right to know more about hospital business. Successes are promptly proclaimed, but any unwelcome developments are kept as a family secret. Is it surprising that rumours and exaggerations arise ?

It is not easy to see extenuating circumstances in the delayedburial incident, and the Board’s disclaimer of ’ responsibility wiU be accepted by few. The promise that such a blunder will not recur will bfe accepted as the least that could be. said. Hospital and medical services have been much discussed, of late, partly because of the controversy between the Government and the B.M.A. Mr. Armstrong now predicts that the doctors will soon fully co-operate under the Social Security scheme. It is difficult to share this optimism. The public will welcome the intimation that out-patients will not be called upon to pay fees, after early in the New Year. An injustice was caused under the Social Security Act provisions, in making out-patients pay for services which the State had contracted to supply free.