CHARITABLE AID ADMINISTRATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 172, 31 July 1901, Page 2

CHARITABLE AID ADMINISTRATION.

The past year presents no new featare in regard to Charitable Aid administration, says Dr Macgregor in his annual report or the hospitals and charitable institutions of the colony. Tho eourtry, he says, is prosperous, work of various kinds is not difficult to obtain, and these facts, together with tho reduction effected by the old age pensions, has reduced the amount distributed in outdoor relief from .£30,850 to in 1899 to .£42,181 for the year ending 31st March, 1901. Speaking generally, Dr Macgregor goes on to say that Local Boards and other Societies are dor ing their best to keep down the outdoor relief that leads to pauperism. The Wellington Benevolent Trustees have shown themselves progressive during the past two years. They have restricted a too lavish outdoor relief, and improved the quality of the rations given. In 1899 their expenditure on outdoor relief was J5684, and last year it was .£3868.

The remedy for the disease of pauperisation, says Dr MacGwigor, rests solely with the citizens. The Government has no power over relief-distributing bodies, and it rests with the people to choose wise and humane men having some knowledge of social needs to act as their representatives on local administrative The institutions to provide indoor relief to aged and destitute persons attain a fair average of excellence. The Caversham Home {Dunedin), and the Costley. Home are fine buildings, each containing over 200 inmates; bat Dr Macgregor adds that both are situated on parcels of land much too small, and at no distant date mast be removed, and the money spent on present buildings lost. The Wellington Board propose to spend the money they have saved by careful management on extending the Ohiro Home, which stands on a barren ridge of about four acres, and this in spite of the certainity that the whole building must shortly be abandoned. To mat^e matters worse, the land is not theirs Dr MacGrego? adds that it is a painful experience to visit the Napier Old Men's Home. If some kindly-disposeod and intelligent residents of Napier visited the infirmary ward and let the public know about the building and conditions prevailing, there would soon be an agitation for a more suitable place for the old and infirm of the Hawkes Bay district. It is, he says, pleasant to be able to record a distinct improvement in the Alexandra Fome, Wellington. He also speaks well of the Wellington Convalescent Home and the Home for the Aged and Needy. Dr MacGregor goes on to urge the necessity of a central receiving Home where incurables, helpless, and bedridden men, women and children could be placed under the charge of hospitaltrained nurses, and no longer left to the ignorant and often-times cruel tendance of a fellow-inmate. One such institution in either Island would probably be sufficient for the present. Dr MacGiegor writes at some length on our hospital system and in doing so remarks that an evil which aeerns inseparable. fro£i the system of local government is the unjustifiable interference of Hospital Trustees in the selection | of probationers and the promotion of nurses. The matron and the medical officer, if they are at all fit for their positions, are responsible for the efficient nursing slaifs of the hospitals, yet members of the Boards insist on the appointment: And promotion of friends o? their own, and the consequence is (hat too often the seniors or charge nurses are not of the best type. Fui--ther, oDly and mainly in our larger hospitals, has it beon found possible to give any systematic training $q nxirgea or to provide any satisfactroy way of testing and certifying their proficiency by examination. In many cases not only are probationers not taught, but there is a positive tendency encouraged, on the score of expense $q have as many probationers as possible, who get no pay for a period, and often no regular instruction. The result is such an output of hospital nurses that the profession is nearly swamppd by them. They call themselves private nurses, though in many cases they have no certificate and could no

pass an examination. They know nothing about nursing, but they add a new and very peal, as well as costly, terror to illness and death.