The New Zealand Times SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1925. OUR HOSPITALS

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12075, 28 February 1925, Page 4

The New Zealand Times SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1925. OUR HOSPITALS

“Praise from -Sir Hubert" is good for everybody, and much desired by everybody. Praise from the highest authority is, of course, the highest, and must bo valued accordingly. The director of the standardisation committee of the American College of Surgeons has conferred this appreciation in a manner we must all admit to be convincing. The United States has been long recognised as the country of good surgery, among the best in the world. With the great names made by London and Paris surgeons confronting us, we must hesitate about placing American surgery at the top of the profession. But the skill of the Americans is undoubted, and their hospitals have worthily won a very great reputation for the adherence of their plans and procedure to modern scientific lines. This is quite enough to demonstrate' the value of the report of the director of the standardisation committee of the American College of Surgeons. There is no occasion for surprise, for the visit to New Zealand of Dr Mayo and his colleagues last_ year brought very great approval of the hospital system of New Zealand. The appreciation of Dr McEachien following the visit of that distinguished company, seems to the well-pleased New Zealander a matter of course: After a careful and prolonged' visitation, the doctor has advised the inclusion in the committee’s list of hospitals whose practice and treatment of patients is scientifically high—the hospitals of Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, and Napier. He is to pay another visit presently to inspect and report on the claim of the Dunedin hospital to this honour. Exactly what he is to do it is difficult to make out, as the cable message announcing his return to New Zealand has sacrificed clearness to brevity. It tells us that the Dunedin hospital is already on the standardised list. And it does not tell ns why Dr McEachien is coming at the request of the British Medical Association. It may he right to infer that the Royal College of Surgeons is the mover in the matter, with a view to getting the New Zealand and Australian hospitals on its standard list. We shall get better news presently. In the meantime, we can all appreciate the honour done to our hospitals by the American College of Surgeons. It is, as we have said, “Praise from S’ir Hubert.” Readers of the Dominion press have long been familiar with the proceedings of the hospital boards, fully reported as they always are. They have learned a good deal of the history of the system under which these boards have been working ever since Parliament authorised the new departure represented by the establishment of the Board of Health. They have recognised the careful attention given by the boards, and they have appreciated the attention paid to modern scientific developments. Above all, they have come to feel deeply grateful to the medical profession for its devotion to the service of the hospitals. Opinions have differed about details of financial management, and particularly about the treatment of the problem of the non-paying patient. But of the scientific progress, the technical knowledge, the plans, arrangements,

and procedures, the public of the Dominion has become as appreciative as it is of the great and high spirit of the medical men connected with the hospital system. li ia pleased to see all these points acknowledged by the American authority, and hopes for similar acknowledgment from the corresponding British authority. The honours paid and due help the bearing of the burden of cost. The cost of the hospitals of the Dominion is high without doubt. That it will increase with the increase of scientific knowledge and methods is also beyond doubt. The public mind, being British, must grumble at this, and does exercise the British privilege of growling. But once convince it that the expenditure is worth while, necessary, imperative in fact, and it will exercise another British privilege—the privilege of commonsense. This honour ought to he convincing. It is not the onesided outcome of a rabid dispute of the man-in-the-street. It is the result of a careful, prolonged examination by a highly competent authority. We can all realise cheerfully that we are getting the worth of our money in the vast humanitarian benefit to the Dominion people. We ought even to realise that it is necessary to devote more money to this cause, because it offers the best investment possible, the returns from which are more live 3, healthier lives, and longer lives. To help these results, -we should he ready to help scientific research, enabling it to do the thousand investigations now suggested by the progress of science, and work in co-operation with the hospital managements. The Dominion must fake care that “praise from Sir Hubert" is not the forerunner of nothing. '