HOSPITAL BOARD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21992, 18 June 1941, Page 4

HOSPITAL BOARD

Treatment Of Out-Patients

A recommendation of the DirectorGeneral of Health that Hospital Boards should agree to accept payments of hospital benefits for out-patients from the Social Security Fund in full satisfaction of out-patient treatment afforded Army. Navy and Air Force sick and wounded was approved at a meeting of the South Canterbury Hosoital Board vesterday. If the numbers of patients attending regularly at particular hospitals were relatively high, the Department would be prepared to look further into the position on receiving full information from the Board concerned. the Director-General advised. The chairman (Mr E. Macdonald) said that the recommendation did not cover X-ray examinations or the innoculation and vaccination of Air Force recruits. The Board was still rather in the dark as to how outpatient treatment under the hospital benefits scheme was going to work out, or how payments were going to be made from the Social Security Fund. The secretary (Mr H. G. Naylor) said it was not known on what basis claims for treatment would be met and expressed the opinion that the basis would be difficult to arrive at. He instanced the demand on the time of the Medical Superintendent and other medical officers, who were not subject to a 40hour or 50-hour week and said it would be difficult to makp a cost allocation on salaries.

“It. would have been much simpler if the Department had adopted Mr Naylor’s suggestion for a per capita payment,” said the chairman. He had put forward the suggestion at Wellington, but the secretary to the Department contended that it would be applicable to the whole of the Dominion. “We will approve the recommendation and keep our eye on the position,” the chairman commented as the motion was adopted. The Director-General of Health forwarded a further circular advising that travelling orthopaedic clinics for the benefit of crippled children had been established and asked for the co-opera-tion of Hospital Boards. The meeting decided to request the Director-General to allocate Timaru to the Otago area.