HOSPITAL POLICY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20651, 25 August 1930, Page 8

HOSPITAL POLICY.

A correspondent's suggestion that the Hospital Board should relieve congestion at the general hospital by building a convalescent home on the land it owns at Manurewa has again called public attention to the desirability of making arrangements to meet this need. It has long been evident that something must be done to relieve the congestion. Facts published to-day show that the general hospital is rendering a restricted service to the community, a limit being imposed by the lack of accommodation for convalescents. The average term spent in hospital is 24 days ; transfer to a convalescent home would shorten the average stay to 14 days, with a corresponding increase in accommodation at the hospital. It is not good business to have the base institution running at so much less than its potential efficiency. At the beginning of its new vear—in April last —the chairman of the board announced that a policy was being considered to meet demands "for many years to come. No comprehensive programme, howi ever, has yet been forthcoming. As to when it can be realised in detail, that is another matter. There is need to plan well ahead, and the fundamental necessity is to proceed on the obvious assumption, then expressed by the chairman, that the main hospital has been specially equipped as a base for major surgical and medical cases, and ought to be only so used. If that assumption had been properly kept in mind throughout recent years, an adequate policy might have resulted. Instead, there has been a piecemeal proceeding which by no show of argument can be made to prove anything bub the absence of a policy. The purchase of a site at Manurewa for a sanatorium for tubercular patients, only to discover that the site is not suitable for such a purpose and that in any event it is better to make use of State sanatoria, is a revealing instance. In what is said now about branch hospitals the same tardiness is evident: a little while ago the board gave the idea no welcome. The project of erecting a convalescent home in the infirmary grounds, good as it is, ought to have been in definite view long ago, as an item in a comprehensive scheme of development. It would not now have to run the gauntlet of financial criticism as a special request for aid at a time of stringency. The case for it is good, but it will be prejudiced by the delay.. There is also to be considered more ample provision for chronic patients. It, is imperative that the main institution be relieved i speedily of the congestion limiting ■ its service. If circumstances pre- ■ elude an immediate solution of the ; practical problem, the board ought • not to be deterred in its duty of i formulating a programme "for many s years to come.". To accomplish this will, at least, increase its chances of getting sanction for proceeding with items in a reasonable order of urgency.