HOSPITAL MATTERS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 68, Issue 5941, 10 May 1944, Page 3

HOSPITAL MATTERS

Sir, —I have to thank Sister for her reply to my statement in your issue of 3rd idem, and also for the valuable information contained therein. It was not my intention to start anything controversial, and thought that I had been strictly expalantory of the reasons why certain Councillors could not be expected to take any special interest in the Te Awamutu Hospital proposition. I also thought it my duty to correct your figures, Sir, as I am sure that you would not wilfully wish to mislead your readers. However, 1 have been greatly interested in the ideas put forth by Sister, evidently impressed upon her during a wide and practical experience of hospital work. I, and probably many more of your readers, would be pleased if she could be prevailed upon to still further enlarge upon the topic, and give some indication of the bed capacity and equipment of the various hospitals; characterised as large, medium and small, and some idea of the population served in each case. The method of financing would also be interesting, in view of the present agitation in respect to our system. She, in turn, will be interested to learn that officials

of the Health Department (not the ones responsible for starting the system, as they have probably passed on to where, I trust, hospitals will not be required) have come to the conclusion that too large hospitals are a mistake, and have fixed 700 beds as the maximum capacity to which the Waikato Hospital should be allowed to develop. How this size would be classified by Sister I hope to learn. The statement that she is puzzled by the relationship between the hospital and the population density in New Zealand, and that, apart from the main centres, the hospitals are away from the people, is very surprising to me.

This may apply to T.B. Sanatoria, and mental institutions, but does not seem to me to be the case with general hospitals. It certainly does not apply to the Waikato, as here it is beside the biggest centre of population in the area, which in turn has acquired its population through being centrally situated to serve a large rural area. Changing conditions in a rapidly developing new country may call for a new system to-day, but I cannot concede that our wise forefathers made any mistake in locating it, over 50 years ago, on the site where it now stands.

Hoping that Sister will accede to my request, and that I may some day have the pleasure of discussing the subject with her personally.—l am, S. C. MACKY.