THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, May 13, 1938. HOSPITAL SERVICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23499, 13 May 1938, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, May 13, 1938. HOSPITAL SERVICE

Yesterday, May 12, was set down for observance as usual as National Hospital Day, a day selected for that purpose for remembrance of Florence Nightingale, whose name is revered among nursing sisterhoods the world over and whose birthday, according to authoritative records, was May 15, 1820, and also for the more practical purpose of reminding the general public of the evergrowing needs and uses of the hospital system. The second object is the one to which we would direct particular attention, for it is a fact that the average citizen’s daily preoccupations tend to make him forget that he has an obligation of service, whether as voluntary worker or merely as taxpayer, toward the vast chain of institutions maintained largely at his expense. Authority for the statement that the needs and uses of the hospital system are ever-growing reposes in the fact of a steadily increasing hospital population—a social phenomenon by no means peculiar, of course, to this country. In New Zealand hospital population is not only increasing numerically. It is growing also in relation to the total population of the Dominion. Each year since 1932 has shown a steady growth in the number of persons requiring hospital attention. In 1932 the number of patients treated in institutions under the control of hospital boards was 79,143. By 1936-37, the last year for which the statistics are available, that figure had grown to 104,141, or roughly 4000 more than the previous year’s total. The inquirer may perhaps conclude that we are living more dangerously than we used to do, and paying less attention to the hazards of health and sudden mishap In the case of accident the statistics will certainly support that conclusion. The dangers of road travel, for instance, have enormously increased in recent years as a result of the development of mechanised road transport. The casualty factor is one that must be concerning hospital boards very considerably. If proof of this assertion is necessary it is provided in the observation attributed to the chairman of the Auckland Board only a few days ago, that two wards in the Auckland public hospital have to be reserved for motor accident cases. How, it may be asked, does such a development affect the ordinary citizen? The answer may be found, at least in part, in the persistent demand of boards for additional hospital accommodation. The taxpayer may pretend that such demands do not interest him. But who else shall pay the interest on the capital cost of hospital extensions and who else shall pay for maintenance over and above the amounts received by the boards for treatment given? In both Auckland and Wellington there are ambitious proposals for dealing with the accommodation problem. The Board in Dunedin, as we have had recent occasion to point out, is itself concerned with plans of considerable magnitude for the improvement of hospital accommodation. In each case the need is more or less urgent, for the boards must be prepared to deal with any emergency that may arise through demands upon them for the treatment of patients. These facts should emphasise the “ needs and uses ” of the public hospitals, if only for the greater satisfaction of the taxpayer, who has to accept the situation as the administrators of the system place it before him. There is another aspect of the problem of hospital accommodation, as it may de-

velop if the Government’s national health insurance proposals become law. The reasonable expectation is that if people are afforded the opportunity of demanding hospital treatment as a right, instead of having to be content with such treatment as can be given to them in their homes, they will elect to go into a hospital. It will not be an unsound election for the modern hospital possesses an equipment of appliances for use in the diagnosis and treatment of disease that was unheard of not so many years ago and that is constantly being enlarged. Such reflections are indisputably relevant to the observance of National Hospital Day. There is a duty on members of the public to take an informed interest in the conduct of State-maintained institutions, especially those which impress, more and more every day, the lesson that a State can have no greater asset than a healthy people. National Hospital Day may awaken in citizens a fuller sense of responsibility toward those less fortunately situated. But it will have its greatest value if it arouses a consciousness of the futility of habits of life that lead inevitably to sickness, suffering and deprivation.