HOSPITAL NEEDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23103, 30 July 1938, Page 15

HOSPITAL NEEDS

MORE ACCOMMODATION PROBLEMS IN AUSTRALIA HUGE EXPENDITURE INVOLVED THE SYSTEM OF CONTROL Tho tremendous problems with which metropolitan hospitals in Australia were confronted in providing accommodation for an ever-increasing number of patients was commented upon yesterday by the president of the Hospital Boards' Association of New Zealand, Mr. J. W. Dove, of Dunedin, who returned from Sydney by the Awatea. As chairman of the Otago Hospital Board, Mr. Dove went to Australia several weeks ago to obtain information on hospital construction and extension, as his board is involved in a building scheme at Dunedin.

To meet the needs for accommodation Australian hospitals were carrying out huge building programmes requiring the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of pounds, Mr. Dove said. At the Royal College of Surgeons' Hospital in Melbourne, a 13-storey building had just been started, the eventual cost of which would probably be nearly £1,000,000. A new modern hospital had recently been completed at Hobart, the expenditure being in the vicinity of £750,000. About £60,000 was being spent on a seven-storey block at St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, which would house 185 nurses. Almost without exception, the practice was to build upward, Mr. Dove said. Financing was on different lines, there being no rating as in the Dominion. A portion of the cost of institutions was met by the States, while the boards found the remainder, partly through voluntary contributions and fees received from patients. Voluntary contributions were often on a generous scale. Jn liis opinion, Mr. Dove added, the New Zealand system of hospital control was superior to that of Australia. The success of New Zealand hospitals was largely due to tho self-sacrificing work of the various honorary staffs.

Mr. Dove left for the south by the limited express last night.