HOSPITAL MATTERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9170, 19 August 1908, Page 5

HOSPITAL MATTERS.

A CONFERENCE. BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION'. H4.WERA, August 18. A conference of delegates representing the New Plymouth, Statford and Hawera Hospital Boards, met at Hawera to-day. Dr. Valintine and the medical superintendents of Hospitals interested attended. Their recommendations included one that patients able to pay ordinary cost of medical arid surgical attendance shall not be admitted to hospitals on the same terms as ordinary patients. This was adopted with a provision that the board lix the maximum charge which may be imposed. The doctors' request that they be allowed the privilege to charge the full fees for attendance on patients at the hospital who are able to pay the full medical, ices was rejected. Resolutions were passed that having in view the fact that every member of the community contributes directly or indirectly or both to the erection and maintenance of public hospitals this conference affirms that any person is entitled to claim admission to such hospitals for treatment as a matter of right, and not as a privilege or charity; that this conference approves that patients from one hospital district desirous of being treated in the ho£pital of another district shall be admitted to such hospitals on the recommendation of the board of such hospital district; that this co;ference approves of the principle that as far as possible patients should be treated.in the hospitals in their separate districts; that the delegates lecomm'end to their boards a new scale of charges, viz., 6s per diem for local patients and 7s for those from outside districts.