THE AUCKLAND HOSPITAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19924, 18 April 1928, Page 10

THE AUCKLAND HOSPITAL.

An informal discussion at yesterday's meeting of the Auckland Hospital Board regarding the policy of complete concentration of the institution's activities was naturally inconclusive. Yet it revealed that the board is not insensible of the misgivings that have been expressed on several occasions, nor indifferent to the need for a positive decision upon the question. Consideration of it should not be confused by references to the needs of the back blocks: that is a separate problem, completely dissociated from the question whether the Auckland Hospital has already reached the limit of size compatible with efficiency and economy. Nor would an affirmative answer to that proposition compel the board to undertake the establishment of another hospital at the cost of £500,000, as Mr. Coylo suggested. The future Auckland may require several independent hospitals, equivalent to the provision in most of tho English cities. There is, however, an intermediate stage in which pressure upon tfic existing accommodation might be met, not by further extensions on the present site, but by the erection of auxiliary institutions for convalescent patients and for special departments of hospital treatment. For instance, is it imperative or even desirable that special wards for infectious diseases should be associated with tho main hospital 1 That arrangement has not been adopted by some other boards, and years ago the Auckland Board proposed an isolated site for infectious diseases. The hospital is already larger than any other in New Zealand or in Australia; there arc, indeed, very few larger in Great Britain. The mere fact that the annual expenses are steadily increasing is not evidence that the hospital is too large to be economical, but that stage cannot be indefinitely distant. It may already be too large for administration as a unit. A large modern hospital is a complex business concern, and even though its chief executive officer is relieved of clinical duties, he must have high technical qualifications as well as organising and administrative capacity. The combination is rare and if the board has a medical superintendent of exceptional qualifications, as indeed must be the Case, it should be careful that it neither demands .more of him than any man can perform, nor, misled by the apparent ease with which he carries the burden of his duties, regards the task too lightly. The means by which the hospital is to serve the growing population of its district cannot be decided by mere dogmatic assertion. That may lead to such an aggrandisement of the institution as to make the maintenance of a high standard of economy and efficiency not only more difficult but actually impossible,.