THE HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE INSTITUTION'S BILL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14698, 4 December 1909, Page 7

THE HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE INSTITUTION'S BILL.

The Legislative Council has amended the Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Bill in three somewhat important respects. On Thursday night, on tho motion of the Attorney-general, itlimited tho scope of the now clause pioviding for the establishment of a lift-y-six-houv week for nurses, probationers, and dressers. The effect of the amendment is to confine tho application of this principle to hospitals in which there are, more than 100 beds. In other words, the eight-hour day is to be observed in the general hospitals in the four centres only, in each of which, we think, tho system is nominally in operation already. Yesterday afternoon a- provision was in>med in tho Bill, at the. instance of the Attorney-general, which secured in teachers and students of the Mcdi,.,l School the right of access to public hospitals. The importance of this amendment will be realised locally. It is evidently designed to have t-ho eilect of restoring to tho senior students of the Medical School in Duncdin that right of obtaining clinical instruction in midwifery under the supervision of their teachers which it was intended they should -have in the Maternity Hospital in Forth street- when that institution was opened, and of which by its strange and perverse action the Charitable Aid Board would deprive them. The object- of the clause would have been more satisfactorily achieved if provision had been made in it that members of the teaching staff of tho Medical School should ex oflicio be members of the honorary stall' of the hospitals, and we hope that even yet, in the interests of the school, the clause may, in conference between the two Houses, take this form, Tho third

amendment which tho Upper House lias made in the Bill is of interest to a large section of the community. When the measuro was before tho elective Chamber ;i clause, of which the full drift can scarcely li.ivo been appreciated. by tho House, as otherwise we should have heard more of it, was introduced m it- empowering any hoard from time to time to enter into an agreement with any registered friendly society whereby, in consideration of a fixed annual or other periodical payment by the society, provision should be inadc for the maintenance in any hospital of the members of such society, their wires, and their children under the age of sixteen years. This provision, it was suspected, was devised to sottle in a manner that would bo acceptable to tiro friendly' societies tho long-standing dispute between these organisations and the medical profession ■respecting tho terms upon which members of lodges and their families should bo treated in their illnesses. We need nob enter into the. merits of this dispute, which has not in this district developed the acnteness that has marked it in other parts of the Dominion. Tliore is a good deal of force, however, in tho objection that a provision of this kind is out of place in a general Bill, Tho Upper House took this view and deleted the clause, and, if for no other reason than that the proposal has been insufficiently considered, we think this was a reasonable decision 011 its part.