PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18885, 6 December 1924, Page 10

PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

In emphasising the difference between the district hospital systems of England and of this Dominion, the Minister for Health has called attention to a distinction that is fundamental and far-reaching. There the district hospitals are more or less charitable institutions, maintained by voluntary contributions and administered by boards without direct responsibility to the public. Here they are instituted for public service, maintained by compulsory levies, and under the control of the Government of the country, with the assistance of local bodies whose members are elected, directly or indirectly, by the paying public. This distinction is often forgotten. It is overlooked whenever the prejudice against becoming a patient in a general hospital, a prejudice imported from England, is expressed and defended in the plea of dislike to receive charity. The objection does not apply in New Zealand. Those admitted here to a district hospital go not as paupers but as partners, having already contributed, according to the system of taxation legally in being, something to the hospital's maintenance. The Minister's argument that rich and poor have equal right to treatment is sound. Since the State has already decided, on principles ostensibly just, what each shall pay to the public fund that maintains the hospitals, it cannot reasonably discriminate against either rich or poor when admittance for treatment is sought. Only if the well-to-do desire service over and above that normally necessary can there be any justifiable demand for extra payment. This principle of public maintenance lies at the root also of what the Minister calls "political control-" It is public money that makes the district hospital possible, and the Government has a consequent right and duty to exercise oversight of its expenditure. There is much to be said, on the same principle, for having paid medical staffs doing all the work of the hospital The use of an honorary staff as an auxiliary is necessary, but it is only a tentative arrangement doomed to removal as soon as funds permit. The members of tho honorary staff do much excellent work without which the hospital could not carry on, and, on their part, they koep themselves in practical touch with progress in the healing art by their hospital service. There is benefit both ways. Yet the paid staff of specialists, as the Minister suggests, is the eventual objective. All concerned in hospital management will do well to give the words full weight. 'ji