HOSPITAL EFFICIENCY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 4 May 1928, Page 7

HOSPITAL EFFICIENCY.

MEDI UA L STAFF QUESTION. OK. H. M. WILSON'S OPINION. VHV 1 KLKGHAI*H~~ IMIHHK ASSOCIATION.) HASTINGS, May I. Interviewed to-day in respect to a statement, by the Hon. J. A. Young, Or. H. M. Wilson, one of New Zealand’s representatives at the medical conference at Canberra-, said this question was most important, affecting as it did medical efficiency in the Dominion.

“Complete efficiency in surgery,’’ lie said, “can only be reached by hospital surgeons serving their probation as young men in hospitals, helping their seniors and gradually acquiring experience and skill lor when their time conies. This can be done only if the public decides to throw the • hospitals open to them. In all countries now post-graduate training is looked upon as essential. In Victoria they pay professors from England and America large sums of money to come to lecture to them. These sums are refunded from feefcs paid by doctors attending postgraduate courses. This post-graduate work can be carried out only with the co-operation of hospitals. “J. feel,’’ said the doctor, “that the prime need in New Zealand to-day is that the public should settle the staffing question. We have the buildings, the men and the money. With wisdom, compromise and the •realisation of the ambitions: of patient and doctor we can have the finest medical system in the world. We ought to build on our present system, not destroy it. If I were an independent man I could serve my country net better than by going round and explaining this, to the public. “I would like to see the hospital board invite Sir Louis Barnett, who will be president of the College of Surgeons of Australia and New Zealand, to discuss with them openly the question of hospital efficiency, and not in committee but so that he can speak through the board and the Press, to the public. Sir Louis is a New Zealander, who has been an eminent teacher in the medical school here and who has had a long and honourable career as a doctor. He has retired from all active practice and is only concerned now with giving to the public of his country an efficient medical service.”

Referring to the Minister’s statement that it rested solely with ahe boards to decide whether they should have stipendary staffs only or stipendary working in conjunction with honorary staffs, T>r. Wilson declared that if the medical profession were properly represented on hospital boards there would be little doubt that their decision would favour I lie policy of conjoining honorary staffs ■’boson from the best men in the hospital district with the assistance of younger, paid resident medical officers with an administration to co-ordinate the services.

Referring to the statement that the Act would allow every board to organise its own administration in respect to the provision of private wards, the doctor said that these; wards were certainly needed. He said that a community hospital should comprise a hospital such a,s exists in most large towns of Now Zealand to-day. with the addition of a building somewhat adjacent but quite' distnict where anyone could obtain a private room either alone or with others and have his own doctor in attendance. bo he a medical or surgical case. Such patients will have to pay according to the room just a,s anyone has to pay say, for a cabin on a steamer. but the building will be accessible to the hospital so that the laboratories, Xray anil other modern diagnostic aquip,incut are available.

He declared that there was no ground lor talk of class distinction in the provision of private wards, adding. “AVhen a person is ill there is only one <*onsideration for medical and nursing professions, and that is to. get him well, and be lie tlie dirtiest- or most miserable person, if lie lie more ill than his neighbor lie will always receive more at teirtion in all countries.” He said he had seen this and could assure the public that it was an incontrovertible fact.