HOSPITAL TREATMENT

Taranaki Daily News, 13 May 1925, Page 8

HOSPITAL TREATMENT

HIGHER FEES PROPOSED. MOTION FOR CONFERENCE, STRATFORD BOARD OPPOSED. (From Our Own Reporter.! Stratford, May 12. A decision to strenuously oppose any attempt to increase the fees charged patients at public hospitals was made at to-day’s meeting of the Stratford Hospital Board. The matter arose during consideration of a number of resolutions to be brought before the conference of hospital boards shortly at Auckland. The president of the Hospital 'Boards’ Association (Mr. W. Wallace) advised that a conference would be held at the Auckland hospital on May 27. At present 38 boards had agreed to join the association and four had declined in the meantime. One of the principal questions to be discussed was the fixing of the amount of the subscription to the association and the appointment of a permanent secretary. A copy of resolutions to be discussed at the conference was also enclosed. in receiving the letter, the chairman (Mr. C. D. Sole) remarked that the Stratford Board was chiefly interested in the abolition of Section 73 of the Act, w’hich had been discussed at a previous meeting of the board, while it would oppose the suggestion to increase the fees of patients to 15s per day. He moved that the board strenuously oppose the suggested increase of fees, maintaining that it was no province of a hospital to enquire into the financial standing of patients. The hospital was there for the care and comfort of the sick and injured, and this should be the first consideration of the board. Mr. Sole further pointed out that the fees at the Stratford hospital were the lowest in New Zealand, being fixed at 7s a day, reducible to 6s a day. The experience of the board was that it was often a difficult matter to get in even the 7s a day, and they would be put to a great deal more trouble if they were to endeavour to collect 13s a day from all patients. The chairman mentioned that whenever an outside doctor was called in to assist at the hospital such services were always paid for. Last year the board had actually paid out something like £lBO for such services; The medical superintendent had full power to call in any doctor he chose, eyen if he had to come from a distant city. If the position arose where the medical superintendent happened to be absent from the hospital when an urgent case required medical attention the matron had power to call in another doctor. There was no such thing as an honorary staff at the Stratford hospital, but the assistance of another doctor was always obtained for the administration of anaesthetics, although that was not the case in all hospitals. For instance, in the Dannevirke and Waipukurau institutions the matron administered the anaesthetics. Mr. W. H. Were, in seconding the motion, remarked that it would be ridiculous for any hospital board to adopt a policy which might keep a sick person or a person badly injured in an accident waiting admittance while some official enquired into the financial ability of the patient to pay a scale of 15s a day. The suggested motion to be discussed at the conference, stipulated a minimum fee of 15s a day, reducible where circumstances warranted after the position of a patient had been investigated. This, he considered, would naturally lead to the drawing up of a lot of questions which the patient would be required to answer, perhaps at no little embarrassment to himself. The motion was carried unanimously.