HOSPITAL PRIVATE WARDS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18954, 30 August 1923, Page 6

HOSPITAL PRIVATE WARDS.

A statement made by Dr Valintine, Director-General of Health, in the course of observations to .the Hawera Hospital Board, put the position of patients in private hospitals in an erroneous light, if indeed it did not convey a veiled reflection on those institutions. “The man who is poorly served in the matter of hospital accommodation at the present time,” said Dr Valintine, “is not the poor man, but the well-to-do man, who has to go into a private hospital.” So far as we are aware, it has never been suggested that private hospitals are inefficient, nor have we any reason whatever to believe that they are. On the other hand, they are necessarily expensive for the patient. That is not a very material consideration in the case of the well-to-do man, but it places treatment in a private hospital beyond the means of the man of only moderate resources. The point to which Dr Valintine was leading up when he spoke in the terms we have quoted was that hospital boards should provide for the establishment of private wards in the public institutions where patients who would be prepared to pay special fees should be entitled to receive special attention. It is also suggested that the receipt ot higher fees by the hospital authorities would provide them with an income which would in turn enable them to give improved facilities to the poorer classes

using the general wards. The validity of this claim would, we suggest, require to be proved in practice. It can hardly be accepted as certain that a general benefit to patients would accrue from the establishment of private wards in public institutions. But it would undoubtedly be advantageous to have provision made by which desirable accommodation with the boon of privacy could be provided at a cost within the resources of moderately placed people. There is no novelty in a proposal of this nature, for it received the approval of the Royal Compiission which inquired into hospital matters in the dominion in 1921, and it nas also the support of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association. Moreover, private wards are provided in public hospitals in Canada and other countries. In the opinion of the Royal Commission “the hospital boards should take oyer the entire respohsibility of the care of the sick,” and it cannot be denied that there is a great deal of cogency in this judgment. Reference was made by the Commission to “the injustice that ratepayers who contribute to the cost of the hospitals are unable to make any use of the superior facilities which these afford, though they are prepared to pay the full cost, net only of maintenance and nursing, but also of their treatment.” In an age of specialisation and of wonderfully improved facilities for the care of the sick it should be possible within the public hospitals to provide the care and attention necessary for every clap of disability. It is to be conceded that there may conceivably be some objection to a system of • differentiation between patients. Upon this point the Medical Superint indent of the Otago Hospital Board has suggested that “the pooling of our resources with an important section of the community, not yet catered for in their own hospital, would tend to increase all-round efficiency of the Dunedin Hospital in the treatment of every patient.” If these’ gains can be registered by the extension of the scope of our present hospitals there is something tangible in the proposal for the establishment of private wards.