OTAKI HOSPITAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 135, 8 May 1928, Page 2

OTAKI HOSPITAL

FIFTEEN BEDS GRANTED. Mr J. J. Brandon. Mayor of Otaki, chairman of the Citizens’ Hospital Committee. Otaki, lias received the following letter from Mr W. H. Field, M.P., in connection with the Otaki Hospital:—“As I have already reported to you verbally, m company with Mr R. C. Maclean, opParaparaumu,. whose valuable assistance I invoked. I had an interview with the Prime Minister on the subject of our hospital and its trouble. Wo placed the position strongly before Mr Contes, and showed him that the proposals tho Palmerston North Hospital Board announced at their last meeting were in no sense a performance of (ho Government’s promise of June lust,. lie at once replied that he was assured that the deputation which had waited on the hoard has acquiesced in the proposals, and had gone away satisfied. This, of course. I at once denied. It was true, I said, that a large deputation had gone to the trouble and expense of journeying to Palmerston North, expecting to confer with the board, but on arrival there they were simply acquainted with the decision arrived at earlier in the day, and pronounced in unmistakable torms by the chairman. A member of the deputation, I said, had inquired whether if it could be shown that more- beds were required’ they would be granted, but the chairman would bold out no hope of any such request being complied with, tho board’s sentence on the hospital being unalterable. Having received this rebuff, the deputation left for home, utterly disappointed and discouraged, their day having been worse than wasted. . “Mr Maclean and J, of course, pointed outto Mr Coates that the board’s proposals provided for no ordinary beds whatever, but only for six emergency ones, which would or would not bo used at the discretion of the board. Our past experience lias proved to us that most of those beds would probably be vacant all tho year round. The nett result of the board’s proposals would therefore bo tho conversion of our hospital into a maternity home. “We showed, too, that these proposals wore thus in keeping with the original resolution of the board to close the hospital, an object which for years past they had been attempting to achieve by a policy of gradual starvation entailing severe annual loss. “Mr Maclean drew Mr Coates s attention to the fact that the district between Wellington and Palmerston North was a closely populated and fast developing one, nearly 100 miles in length, and that there, was no case in New Zealand where such a district was without a hospital; indeed, there are instances of smaller hospitals doing good work only a few miles from base hospitals —and that it was cruel to convey patients, particularly young children, such long distances as wiould in many cases be dangerous to health and even life, and as would preclude relatives from visiting them frequently, if at all. We urged the fact that in cases of minor illness and accident better and more personal attention was available at the smaller hospitals. We pointed qut, too, that other hospital boards were administering both base and smaller hospitals without friction or difficulty, and that there was no good reason for singling out for destruction our hospital which had done such excellent work during all the years that are past when it was given a chance to prove, and did prove, its great usefulness. “I informed Mr Coates that, after conferring with you and other members of your committee, it'had been decided that I should submit the following proposal as the minimum which we could accept, namely, iO ordinary beds for all cases of illness or accident not sufficiently seriqus to dfemnnd treatment at a base hospital, plus 5 maternity beds, that is 15 beds in all instead of the 18 beds which the hospital has always contained. “Mr Coates promised to consider our representations at once, and on tho next day, I called on him when lie announced that lie had talked the whole position over with the Director-General, of Health, and it had been arranged that the new alteration 10 be commenced almost immediately would provide for 11 ordinary beds, cither 6 loi men and 5 for women, or the reverse, and 4 maternity beds, and that the plans were being altered accordingly. “I at once accepted these proposals, and he directed me to convoy this, the Government’s. determination, to your committee. 1 trust, therefore, that at last, we are to receive a fair measure of justice, and that, tho Hospital Board will abandon their hostility to us and allow Our institution to continue the good work, it was doing for s;o many years.”