HOSPITAL AFFAIRS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24134, 28 November 1941, Page 4

HOSPITAL AFFAIRS

Sir.—lt is a plain fact that the Auckland Hospital is not being administered. The acting-medical superintendent has a full-time job as pathologist and cannot possibly devote sufficient time to administration —the greater proportion of which is being done by a clerk with no medical knowledge whatever. The tuberculosis officers at the Infirmary are doing;excellent work under conditions which beggar description — and the board knows it but has done nothing to build a modern clinic with proper change rooms and something resembling reasonable ventilation for patients and staff. The sooner a lay board with no knowledge whatever of proper hospital conditions ceases to interfere in matters in which it has had no experience and leaves the technical administration to officers who do understand such details the sooner will Auckland possess something in the way of a modern hospital with the facilities and conveniences such as are found in other parts of the world. Even the much-vaunted new block at the Infirmary is being constructed without anv provision for an administrative building. Perhaps it is the intention of the board to administer this 250-bcd hospital from the chairman's office in Kitchener Street. lIIPI'OOHATKS.