PUBLIC HOSPITALS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 72, 8 March 1930, Page 8

PUBLIC HOSPITALS

GREATER USE BEING MADE OF THEM. SOME INTERESTING FIGURES. At the conference held in Wellington on Thursday of representatives of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association, tho New Zealand executive of the Australian College of Surgeons, tho executive of the Hospital Boards’ Association, the Health Department, the secretaries of tho larger hospital boards, and Mr M. J. Savage, M.P., a member of the Auckland Hospital Board, the Minister of Health (the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy) submitted some interesting figures as evidencing the greater use of the public hospitals, which, he said, was a feature of the hospital development all through the British Empire. In 1910-11, said the Minister, the number of beds provided in public hospitals in New Zealand was 3218, or 3.1 per 1000 of the population. In 1928-29 the corresponding figures were 8457 beds, or 5.8 per 1000. Thu average daily number of occupied beds beds increased from 1.9 per 1000 in 1910-11 to 3.7 per 1000 in 1928-29. The number of in-patients annually receiving treatment had increased from 25,191, or 24.1 per 1000 in 191011, to 87,888, or 59.8 per 1000, in 192b--29, an increase relative to population of no less than 148 per cent, in eighteen years. The out-patient services during the same period had developed at a still greater rate. In 1910-11 18,867 out-patients received treatment at public hospitals, as against 73 952 in 1928-29. The gross annual maintenance cost of public hospitals had in the same period increased from £200,691 to no less a sum than £1.206,190 for last year, disregarding indirect expenses and also expenditure on district medical, nursing, and ambulance services. EXPENDITURE AND TAXATION. Per head of the population, said the Minister, hospital maintenance gross expenditure was 3/11 in 1910-11, and 16/6 in 1928-29. These were gross figures of maintenance cost, in order to emphasise the extension of the public hospital services, and they did not take into account recoveries in the form of patients’ fees. “It might be mentioned,” the Minister added, “that patients’ fees collections amounted to some £45,000 in 1910-11, while for 1928-29 over £450,000 was collected from this source. In this connection it is particularly inter esting to note that the annual amount now received from patients is nearly double what the annual maintenance cost of hospitals was 18 years ago. However, the fact remains that provision of public hospitals including administrative expenses and interest and depreciation charges, involve? a burden on local and general taxation exceeding £1,000,000 per annum. No more requires to be said to emphasise the need for directing hospital policy along lines that will assure the greatest possible measure of co-operation between the controlling authorities and the members of the medical profession.”