PUBLIC HOSPITAL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 24 May 1927, Page 4

PUBLIC HOSPITAL.

ADMISSION CERTIFICATES

STATEMENT BY HAWERA DOCTORS.

(To the Editor). Sir, —In .your issue of last night, in Mr Ju. a. xayior’s fetter, the (Statement jus ntaue unit the local members or the British Meuioau Association unvaried Dr. Frazer wiio, no states, ••at tne outset set out to make the nospicui a ‘people's hospital,’ with an open uooi to ail the sick,” and later ue calls on Mr Giiianders to answer ems question: “Does your board, now propose to go back on tne policy ininated by Dr. Frazer with your board’s consent, or is it going to allow the meaioar profession to stand between cue ratepayers aud tne .ratepayers’ Hospital, ana to eliarge for their certificates of admission 1 J ”

As these statements are typical of the muddle-headed ideas very generally ueld as to tlie relations of the medical profession aud the hospitals, we propose to state some facts to dear the situation.

First—the New Zealand hospitals are not absolutely open hospitals. If they were, there would be no need for private practitioners. Every medical service would have to be paid for, and the cost of the hospitals would be enormously increased. As it is, the medicav proiession gives an enormous amount of free or honorary services to the hospitals. In fact, the local hospital could not have carried on througih the present interregnum Without those honorary services' Further, the difference between the daily cost per individual patient and the charge of the hospital per day is such that the average ratepayer patient very soon exhausts the amount he pays in rates, and he is then in actual fact a recipient of charitable aid.

These facts are well recognised, ant it is the aim of many hospitals in Nev Zealand to cut down wlrat is termet abuse of the hospitals, that is, then us© by people who can afford to for private medical treatment. Th< declared policy of the B.M.A. is th< Toronto system, in which the hosipita is open to all the public; but thoiS* who can afford it pay the hospital ar least the cost of their keep, a sun much larger than any New Zealairu hospital charges. These patients an allowed their own doctor, with when they make their own financial arrange meats. Those less well off pay on j scale approaching that of New Zealan< hospitals, and the indigent do not par anything, or only a nominal amount Neither of these classes pay for pri vate medical treatment. The regulations of hospital board: generally throughout the Dominior show that they recognise the position Admission is by certificate of a doctoa or of a member of the board. This i: included in the local - board’s bydaws Full-time medical .superintendents d< not as a rule accept patients except oi these certificates. Where, this rule ii not followed there is abuse of the bos pitals, and the ratepayers! have to fin< greatly increased amounts of money The average supply of beds is one pe; 400 of the population. Where hospita abuse exists the ratepayers may nav< to srupplv one bed even for 240. Those points are those recognised b] the “local members of the: 8.M.A.” anc suffiicient.lv explain their attitude. We are, etc., W. F. BUIST. A. A. MACDONALD. J. McGHIE. R. G. B. SINCLAIR. W. M. THOMSON. May 24.