HOSPITAL ADMINSTRATION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 28 April 1926, Page 7

HOSPITAL ADMINSTRATION.

REPLY TO MINISTER, OPINIONS OF MEDICAL MEN. (BY TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, April 27. A. reply to the remarks of the Hon! J. A. Young, Minister of Health, concerning the administration of hospitals, in the light of Dr. MacEiachern’s report, was made to-day by Dr. H. E. Gibbs, chairman of the council of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association. • , ■ ' ‘‘The executive of the B.M.A. read with regret, and' some degree of resentment. the statements of the Minister of Health at Huntly, as reported in the press,” stated Dr. Gibbs. ‘‘When the Health Department, hospital boards, and British Medical Association are all working together for the bettermen and improved service of our hospitals, it is hardly fair or generous, or, as a schoolboy would put it, ‘not playing cricket, for the Minister, of all people, to attribute purely selfish and interested motives to one of the parties. ‘‘The Minister’s remarks that the control of hospitals would remain; .with, the people, and that it would he a serious mistake if such control were to pass into the hands of the medical profession, assumes that such a condi-. tion was the aim and object of the doctors, or would be welcomed byithem, whereas we would again emphatically assert that neither individually nor collectively do the doctors desire to control the hospitals or their policy. “The doctors do feel that by reason of their intimate relationship with these institutions they should know something about them, and that tlieir opinions should therefore carry some weight and respect. They know that, good as our hospitals are, they could be made better, could be made to serve a. wider public, could be run more economically, and could lie made of greater educational value and service to the medical profession, from which the public would receive the most benefit. Knowing this, should not the medical profession speak out? And, if it does, should it not expect the Minister of Health, of all people, to listen sympathetically to the views expressed, instead of excusing and accounting for the ‘taihoa’ policy and the smug complacency that ‘all in the hospitals garden is" lovely,’ by insinuating that the interest of the doctors and the B.M.A. is wholly selfish, and with tlie ulterior object of getting control of the hospitals ? “So far is this from being the case,” continued Dr. Gibbs, “that were it at all possible, or probable, the B.M.A. and the doctors would shrink from the responsibility. It is not desired to traverse the reported speech in detail, the covert belittling of the American authority because it is American, the drawing of the red herring of appalling fees across the path, when we know fliat all the charges in America are appalling to our standards, and the ambiguous use of the term ‘community’ as applied to i the hospitals; but one might point out that the Minister’s reference to the British hospitals was particularly unfortunate for his argument, as these hospitals are run just as it is advocated that ours should be run—free from political influence and control, bv selected boards, rather than elected boards, and where the income (from voluntary subscriptions) controls the expenditure, and not as with us, where the estimates, and therefore the expenditure, keep mounting up year by year with no finality, in sight.” ,