COUNCIL PAPERS

Colonist, Volume X, Issue 743, 12 July 1867, Page 3

COUNCIL PAPERS

REPORT ON THE HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT

The following is tho report of the Select Committee appointed to take into consideration the paragraph in the Superintendent's speech respecting tho future Management of the Hospital:— _ The Select Committee appointed to take into consideration paragraph No. 11 of his Honor the Superintendent's address, and to report on the future management of the Nelson Hospital beg to report as_ follows :—

Your Committee after a careful consideration of the subject referred to them, have come to the conclusion that it is unnecessary for them to devise any rules for the future management of the Hospital, ngreeing as they do with the opinion expressed by the Superintendent in the said paragraph, that the Act in question " contains provisions for the efficient management of the establishment." They, therefore, recommend that the Council should give immediate effect to that Act, by appointing the two persons out of the Committee of three, in whom the management of the Hospitnl is therein vested ; and the Superintendent has already expressed his desire to co-operate with the Council in bringing the Act info operation. Your Committee are of opinion that .fitting persons having been selected for the government of the Hospital, the direction of its affairs may with safety and propriety be left to the unfettered judgment of the Committee of Management. Your Commit! es believe that it would, on many accounts, be desirable that one of the managing body should, when possible, be selected from among the members of this Council. The funds voted by the Council for the maintenance of the Hospital, might either be placed entirely at the disposal of the Commiftee of Management, along with the power of creating such offices as they think dependent on the number and functions of the medical and other officers being pre-arranged, the powers of the Committee might in this respect be limited to the appointing to offices already created by vote of Council. The latter course is, your Committee believe, the most advisable.

_ "Your Committee recommend that on the completion of the present building, a resident medical officer should be appointed. Whether the officer should be an experienced medical practitioner, having sole medical charge of the establishment, or a junior practitioner, acting under direction of a visiting physician or surgeon, there may be room for difference _of opinion. Until the actual working of the hospital should saggest another course, your Committee desire to recommend the latter arrangement. "Your Committee are further of opinion that the Lunatic Asylum (and perhaps the Gaol), might be brought under the same medical management and supervision as the Hospital itself, wiih a view to economy, and the avoiding unnecessary multiplication of offices; your Committee beg to suggest that the duties of the Health Officer whose appointment has just been recommended by the Sanitary Commission of Nelson, should devolve on the same person as may be entrusted with the discharge of the other duties above specifled. " Robert Bt/bjt, " Chairman." I