HOSPITAL REFORM

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 69, 20 February 1932, Page 2

HOSPITAL REFORM

RECONSTRUCTION SCHEME. POSITION OF COUNTRY DISTRICTS, The application of his scheme for hospital reconstruction ,as it affected country districts was explained by Dr. R. Campbell Begg, of Wellington, in a reply to criticism made by Mr A: L. Campbell, of the Hawera Hospital Board and Eltham County Council. Dr. Begg’s reply has particular reference to New Plymouth, Hawera add Stratford hospitals. “Mr Campbell vigorously (criticised some scheme which has no relation to any. suggested from here,’! Dr. Begg said. “I can assure Mr Campbell on most of the points ho raised. The proposals of the Wellington board do not mvolve: “(1) Taking hospitals out of the hands of the taxpayers. “(2) Closing the Hawera Hospital or reducing its function to the care of urgent cases only. “(3) Subjecting influenza cases to travelling from Hawera to New Plymouth. “(4) The closing of the out-patient department at the Hawera Hospital. “(5) Closing the Stratford Hospital,. “They do involve: “(1) The control and co-ordination of the Stratford, Hawera and Taranaki Hospital Board districts by one board with representatives from the contributing bodies of all three districts. “(2) The establishment of a strong base hospital at New Plymouth with an efficient investigating ciinio. for outdoor patients at New Plymouth, with the use. and development of all the medical resources available in that town. “(3) The right of any patient in the three districts to be sent for outpatient diagnosis to the base hospital clinic' by the medical officer at either of the two other hospitals. “(4) The right of any patient to be sent to New Plymouth for any investigation or treatment which it is considered ho could obtain at the hands of a team of medical men with special experience at New Plymouth, and which is not available under the conditions necessarily available at Hawera or Stratford. “(5) The right to be referred back to Hawera after, diagnosis at New Plymouth for treatment at the Hawera Hospital. “(6) The right to have the services of specially qualified men from the New Plymouth Hospital at Hawera in urgent cases where desirable. “The central board at New Plymouth with the help of its medical committee whiclt might well have representatives of the district hospitals would have the power so to arrange the medical services that all patients who could receive adequate treatment at the district hospital would be treated there. It would decide from time to time what standard of work could rightly be performed at Hawera and wnat ought to be sent on to New Plymouth, taking into account the best means to secure the rapid treatment and quick recovery of the patient. It would co-ordinate the treatment of chronic and infectious disease in the whole of its district to the best advantage. “New Plymouth Hospital would have free facilities for sending cases to Wellington for such diagnostic and treatment methods as were not available. All this would be done without the tedious, unsatisfactory and dilatory . methods involved in one board using the services of another, which exists at present. “Such a'system would prevent overlapping, prolonged stay, and give rapid handling _ and quick return to work. It is all in the interests of the patients. It would mean the loss of seats on the hospital boards by some members in all .the. three districts. But, as has rightly been remarked, ‘the patient comes first’.”