HOSPITAL SYSTEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19740, 13 September 1927, Page 12

HOSPITAL SYSTEMS.

PROGRESS IN UNITED STATES. HIGH STANDARD OF EFFICIENCY. POLICY OF CENTRALISATION. The wonderful efficiency and high standard of, administration maintained in public hospitals throughout the United States greatly impressed Mr. Murdoch Fraser, chairman of the Taranaki Hospital Board, and a member of the Dominion Board of Health, who returned from a four months' visit to the United States and Canada by the Niagara yesterday. Mr. Fraser was given every assistance by the American authorities, and was enabled to inspect no less than 65 institutions between Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. "I consider the United States leads the world in hospital administration," said Mr. , Fraser. "The public are very generous, and their institutions very wealthy. I also found that the authorities are ever ready to learn. Whenever 1 met them 1 could get no information from them until 1 told them about our hospitals and the way they are run," As the result of his visit, Mr. Fraser is more than ever convinced that a weakness in the hospital system of New Zealand is that there are too many hospitals. As an instance, he said there was an institution in New Plymouth, and within a radius of 48 miles there were other hospitals in Stratford and m Hawera In the United States a policy ol centralisation bad been adopted, and this might well be followed in the Dominion Centralisation led to greater co-ordination, less expenditure, and greater efficiency. The public hospital at San Francisco was the very latest word in efficiency, and in addition there were over 60 private hospitals. The Chinese residents, who numbered about 20,000, bad a hospital of their own, and it was a model of cleanness, and the greatest credit to the Chinese. Mr. Fraser also saw the comparatively new hospital at Oakland, which had cost three and ahalf million dollars to erect, and was perfect in every respect.

"The staffs, comprising doctors, who are all specialists, are wonderfully efficient," continued Mr. Fraser. "I fonnd everywhere I went a desire to learn about hospital affairs in New Zealand, and 1 told them much about the Auckland institution, which I consider the finest we have."

Everywhere he went, Mr. Fraser was accorded the greatest hospitality, and the doctors and hospital authorities with whom he came m contact could not do enough for him.