DOMINION HOSPITAL SYSTEM

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 9 May 1921, Page 5

DOMINION HOSPITAL SYSTEM

MODEL FOR OTHER LANDS,

STATEMENT BY DR. VALINTINE

."It may not be out of place,' 3 remarked the Director of Hospitals (Dr. Valintine), in his evidence before the Hospitals Commission, "ta say that the New Zealand hospital system has attracted much attention in other lands. It has been adopted, with very few modifications, in the Union of South Africa,^ and I understand that -our system will be taken as the basis for governing the hospitals in some of the Australian States, and when in London last year I was informed by the expert officers of the Board of Health, who had been especially instructed to repart on the hospital systems of other lands* with a view to altering the control of hospitals in the United Kingdom, that of all the hospital systems reported on not one was considered more adaptable to the United Kingdom than that of New Zealand. » X

"In showing the popularity of our' system, I may say that whereas in 1910-11 there were a total number of 23,584 persons attending our hospitals —a proportion of 1.81 per thousand of the population—there were in 1919-20 rio fewer than 49,151 persons under treatment, or a proportion of 3.30 per thousand of the population. The average number of occupied beds daily, as may be seen on page 4 of the 1920 report, is 3897, as compared with 1839 in 1910-11. This increase in the popularity of our general hospitals may, to a large extent, be accounted for by the public being better educated as to the advantages to be derived from hospital treatment. "We do not hear nowadays of 'experiements' and 'charnel houses' in connection with our institutions. I believe I am right in saying that the public as a whole has the very greatest confidence in our institutions."