HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2811, 26 August 1908, Page 15

HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATION.

CONFERENCE AT HAWERA. HAWERA, August 18. A conference of delegates representing the New Plymouth, Stratford, and Hawera Hospital Boards met at Hawera. to-day. Dr Valintine and the medical superintendents of the hospitals interested attended. Their recommendations included one to the effect that patients able to pay the ordinary cost of medical and surgical attendance shall not be admitted to hospitals on the same terms as ordinary patients. This Avas adopted, with a provision that the board fix the maximum charge Avliich may be imposed. A motion that doctors be alloAved the privilege to charge full fees for attendance on patients at the hospital able to paA- full medical fees was rejected. Resolutions A^cre passed affirming that, having in A'ieAV the fact that every member of the community contributes directly or indirectly, or both, to the erection and maintenance of public hospitals, the conference affirms that any person is entitled to claim admission to such hospitals for treatment as a matter of right and not as a privilege or charityj that the conference approves of the suggestion that patients from one hospital district desirous of being treated "in the hospital of another district shall be admitted to such hospital on the recommendation of the board of such hospital district ; that this conference approves of the principle that as far as possible patients should be treated in hospitals in their separate districts ; that the delegates recommend to their boards that a new scale of charges be 6s per diem for local patients, and 7s for those from outside districts.