HAWERA HOSPITAL COSTS.

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 9 March 1935, Page 4

HAWERA HOSPITAL COSTS.

(To the Editor.) Sir.—Some weeks ago I read with interest a leader in your paper concerning the subject of hospital control and now I notice that the same question is receiving consideration by the Stratford Hospital Board and members of the medical profession who have protested against the establishment of an “open” outpatients’ department at Stratford hospital, that is to say, an outpatient department where all and sundry, rich and poor alike, whether they be ratepayers or not, may receive treatment at, a suggested fee of ids 6d per visit.

Now, Sir, we have just such an outpatients’ department at the Ha we r a hospital, with this difference, that the fee is 5s for the first visit, and 2s Cd per visit thereafter, a purely nominal fee, the real cost of upkeep being borne by the ratepayers and the Government. So far as I have been able to ascertain, it is the only “uncontrolled” outpatients’ department in the Dominion. In Auckland Gitv, for example, admissions to the outpatients’ department can generally be obtained only upon the recommendation of a Charitable Aid Officer or medical 'practitioner, and some measure of control obtains in .every hospital throughout the Dominion, which goes to show that city and provincial hospital administrations alike regard it as undesirable and impossible to open their doors except to those for whom public hospitals rightly exist and for whom, of course, they were ever established in the first place. That there is.something wrong with the administration costs of the Hawera hospital is only too obvious from a. comparison with other hospitals. Total jeost of Hospital maintenance for year ending 31—3—34. Annual

Note, Sir, that Dannevirke, with the same number of occupied beds her diem as Hawera, cost £3821 less than Hawera, for the year, while Masterton, with 34 more beds, cost only £1322 more for the same period—and look at the appalling number of outpatients. The position would be different if a system of grading were introduced—that is to say, from pay wards or private wards down, to free wards. No doubt, then the outpatients’ department could be modified and brought into line with such a system on a payable basis. As it .stands, it is an unnecessary and unjust burden on the ratepayers and the State and is in addition a violation of the real purpose of a public hospital and the principle of “live and let liyg, ” so far as the private medical practitioner is concerned. I am, yours', etc., ' “STATISTICIAN.” <

cost. Hawera 5S.2 beds per diem £11617 Dannevirke 58.7 beds per diem £7796 Thames 72.2 beds per diem £9006 Masterton 92.1 beds per diem £12,939 Outpatients’ Department Number Attendances

Hawora: .. 1695 5S69 Dnnnevirkc .. 133 1198 Thames 84 289 Masterton .. 210 1486