ENCOURAGING ECONOMIES

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1932, Page 9

ENCOURAGING ECONOMIES

DOMINION HOSPITALS COST scope for increased charges. MINISTER REVIEWS THE POSITION. GREAT VARIATIONS IN STAFFS. •—.T By Telegraph.—Press Association. ■Wellington, June 9. Some important aspects of hospital board finance were revealed by the Minister of Health (the Hon J. A. Young), when opening the Hospital Boards’ Association conference. He made reference to the economies that had been effected, saying that they were most encouraging. Some boards had done exceptionally well. A few had not, perhaps, shown themselves to be fully alive to the difficulties confronting the country and the need for a searching out of all possible means for easing the burden of local and general taxation for hospital and charitable aid purposes. There was undoubtedly still scope on the part of some boards for increasing the charges for maintenance and treatment. It should be regarded as fundamental to the system that patients able to pay the cost of treatment should be required to do so. The boards as a whole had to make up deficiencies of an aggiegato of about £85,000 brought forward from last year. " Steps were being taken by the unemployment Board to relieve . hospital boards of the greater part of their past burden of unemployment relief. That would make the department 8 and boards’ problems so much less embarrassing. Nevertheless, for this year the estimated requirements for outdoor- relief were approximately the same as the amount provided on the estimates for last year —£181,000 this year, against £178,000 last year. The difficulties confronting boards were fully appreciated by the Government. It could not be too strongly emphasised, however, that the financial resources of the . Government were this year considerably decreased compared with those of last year, and hospital boards must endeavour to struggle along with a reduced allocation for subsidies. Mr. Young appealed for a continuance of efforts to effect savings in maintenance costs and generally to ease the load on’ local ratepayers and general taxpayers. , Referring io staffing, Mr. Young pointed out that there were great variations as between the various institutions, both in regard to the number of the staff to beds and the relation of the number of trained nurses to untrained nurses. He commended to the conference for consideration the question of standardisation and a schedule of staff requirements, duties, hours of service and rates of salaries and wages in various types of hospitals. Some hospitals economised and some did not; some were over-staffed and some were understaffed.