PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 December 1924, Page 8

PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

EXTENSION OF SCOPE.

TO COVER ALL CLASSES.

REPORT OF COMMISSION. A recommendation has been made by Mr, E. Page, S.M., sitting as a commission of inquiry into the Bryce case at Palmerston North, that hospital boards and the Department of Health take into consideration the question of extending the operations of the public hospitals to serve all classes of the community.

The report of the commission states, apart from reviewing the Bryce case:—

“While there does not appear to be any precise statutory provision compelling a hospital board, if it has accommodation, to admit a patient who may be able to afford treatment in a private institution, the origin and trend of our legislation does not, iu my opinion, contemplate that the benefits of our public hospitals should ibe confined to the poorer classes. It is not the practice of hospital boards generally throughout New Zealand to admit only the poorer classes of the community, though a few boards make some effort to do so.

“Hospitals are maintained out of local rates and general taxes, to which all classes of the community• contribute. I think that the hospitals should be open to everyone, though, if the accommodation is limited, the poorer patient should have the preference. Adequate fees (including reasonable fees for operations and other special treatment) sufficient to cover the whole cost of treatment should be charged to those able to pay. INCREASE OF FEES.

“I have the honour to recommend that the fee charged by the hospital boards for the maintenance and treatment of patients while in hospital be increased to such sum as will cover the full cost thereof (including a reasonable charge for operations and other special treatment).

“Boards should retain the power of remitting the whole or part of the fees in the case of any patient who is unable to pay.

“Evidence on behalf of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association was tendered at the hearing. From this it appears that there is unrest among members of the medical profession throughout New Zealand at the growing tendency amongst the better-off people to make use of the public hospitals, and thus to obtain, without cost to them, the services of the honorary medical staff.

“It is doubtless due to this feeling that the case in Palmerston North now under review has arisen. EXTENSION OF OPERATIONS. “I suggest that hospital boards and the Department of Health might take into consideration the important question of so extending the operations of the public, hospitals, as to adequately serve all classes of the community.

“The trend of hospital administration of the present day is towards centralisation, the establishment in the main centres of large, well-equipped hospitals which can specialise in every branch of modern medicine and surgery. which will be equipped with the most modern scientific appliances, and in which all classes of the community can be treated.

“There is, T think, a present demand for the establishment of private rooms and semi-private wards in the main hospitals. “These could be made use of by patients willing to pay for them. A workable scheme can. I apprehend, gradually be evolved whereby patients may, if they so desire, and are willing to pay therefor, obtain the services of, and be treated iu the public hospitals by their own private practitioner, in lieu of treatment by the regular staff of the hospital.

“If honorary medical staffs are to be continued, further provision might be made that for treatment or operation, accorded by them to patiqnts able to pay. there would be charged to the patient, and paid to the physician or surgeon, a moderate fee in accordance with an agreed scale.

matters, no doubt, raise many difficulties, financial and otherwise, that will require to be overcome, but if a steady and earnest effort Is made to cope * with them, conditions, such as those whih brought about the present inquiry, should gradually disappear.