PREYING ON HOSPITALS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11767, 14 October 1932, Page 5

PREYING ON HOSPITALS

PRACTICES OP HUMBUGS. NO BEDS FOR GENUINE CASES. How hospitals are imposed upon by well-to-do patients—many with nothing .wrong with them—was revealed to a London newspaper recently. These people get treatment free, and deprive the needy poor of the very facilities for which the hospitals are. provided. “There are more than COO voluntary hospitals in this country. It costs £12,000,000 a year to maintain them, and every penny comes from free-will public offerings,’’ said Air. Phillip Inman, House Governor, Cjiaring Cross Hospital, London. The money is subscribed by the very poor as well as the rich. But while the gifts of the wealthy may cost the donor little sacrifice, the offerings of the poor often represent blood money. “The first duty of every hospital is to give medical and surgical treatment to those who cannot afford a doctor’s private fees,” added Air. Inman. “But there are people occupying hospital beds who are well a-blo to pay for the privilege. “There is another kind of parasite known as ‘wanderers.’ Like birds of passage they move from one institution to another, taking up tho doctors’ time; undergoing costly treatment like an X-ray examination, and even tliougli all fhe results prove negative they go away dissatisfied. One man admitted that in live months ho had boon a patient at no fewer than 14 London institutions. There was nothing wrong- with him.’’ The disappointment of many a hospital is t]ie injured motorist. “The Newcastle Victoria Royal Infirmary authorities kept a strict record over a. definite period. Twelve hundred pounds was spent on caring for motor casualties,’’ said Air. Inman, “qud only £SO was received from the injured concerned.”

At a Bedford inquest tho house ■surgeon stated that out of 100 beds jn the County Hospital 30 were occupied by road accident eases.