USE OF COTTAGE HOSPITALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16619, 16 August 1917, Page 4

USE OF COTTAGE HOSPITALS.

PROTEST BY MR." V. H. REED[BY TELEGRAPH.— CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Wednesday. In answer to a question by Mr. V. H Reed, the Minister for Public Health stated in Parliament to-day that he hoped to visit the North Island district after the session. He would then carefully inquire into. the hospital system. It had been reported to him that the Kawakawa hospital was erected in the first instance for maternity cases only, but that it was subsequently used for other cases was not through any insistence on the part of the Department, The Department waT not favourable to cottage hospitals, except under unusual conditions arising out ,* illation and similar circumstances. When a cottage hospital had been erected for specific purposes, such as maternity or accident cases, it.was practically certain to be used for other patients. nn less carefully watched, but the Hospital Board interested must take full responsibility for the admission of typhoid and other infectious classes- of patients, which tended to make the institution unsafe for other purposes. Mr. Reed objected to the assertion that the responsibility for the admission of infectious cases rested upon the board. He emphatically declared that the Department had forced these cases into th.9 maternity -homes mentioned. ' /