URGENT REFORM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 42, 19 February 1932, Page 12

URGENT REFORM

HOSPITAL PROBLEM HEALTH AND WELFARE OF PEOPLE WELLINGTON, Feb. 18.8 Dr. Campbell Begg, replying to the remarks made at the Palmerstcn North Hospital Board meeting, makes the following statement:— The complaint of the chairman of the Palmerston North Hospital Board appears to lie in the claim that the proposed changes should not be made until there has been ample time for deliberation and discussion. At the same timo he admits that the principles involved are very old and have been the subject of consideration for many years. The two statements appear to be contradictory. With the latter I heartily concur. No claim for originality has ever been made. From the time when Dr. Macgregor made his proposals in regard to the consolidation of hospital districts in the year 1886, and even earlier, from the period when Dr. Valintine made his bid for twenty hospital districts, from the time when Dr. Malcolm MacEachern addressed the Hospital Boards Conference and lodged his report at the office of the association in 1927, no effective criticism has been made against the suggestions of these experts, but nothing has been done to give effect to them. All alike during this half-century have had the mortification of seeing vital matters affecting the health and welfare of the people converted into pawns on the chessboard of political and parochial expediency. “Dr. Begg,” says Mr Hornblow, “is only reiterating things which we have been unable to introduce into this country. He has not told us something which we did not know previously as administrators of hospital affairs.” Surely if these things are desirable, and the speaker’s words seem to imply that he thinks they are, it matters no jot by what method they are brought about or by whom, ''"'ill half a century of talk be any solace to the burdened taxpayer or the patient whose circumstances prevent his getting such' a medical service as his more fortunate brother can obtain, and which a reorganisation of our hospital system can bring to him also? Why this resentment against the Wellington Hospital Board, which is trying to convert into actuality what others believe in but take no steps to effect? Tangible Action Needed Are these matters of no urgency when it is obvious that the money being expended on hospitals fit present is not necessary and will indeed not be available? The ground has been well prepared. Fifty years seems an ample time for discussion of principles. In regard to details, the greatest help can be given by individual hospital boards with a knowledge of local conditions, and I feel sure that in an emergency such as this a hospital board or its committee would not hesitate to meet daily in order to come to definite and helpful conclusions. The example of the. English Cabinet in a time of national crisis showed what could be done in a few days. Let the Palmerston Board demonstrate what can be accomplished in twenty-eight days. The results of such a deliberation carried out by a number of earnest men would be of far more value than the spontaneous generalities of a much larger number given without a similar amount of thought at any conference, and if every board would take the same action something tangible would be achieved. It was with this object in view ths the Wellington Hospital Board submitted its proposals to all other boards in the country, and it is at least entitled to the sympathetic and constructive criticism of its fellow-boards. With another type of criticism the Wellington Board has no concern. References to loss of popular franchise, pauperism of hospitals, domination by the British Medical Association, etc., are totally irrelevant to the discussion of a scheme in which neither directly nor indirectly are these matters involved. Clear logical thinking, arguments based on facts, trenchant criticism, substitution of advanced proposals by better suggestions, these are what the Wellington Hospital Board desired in submitting its proposals, and these are what Parliament will require before incorporating them in legislate Palmerston North Hospital Board, has the charge of one of the most important and populous districts of New Zealand, and it has a duty to give its own contribution to the solution of such urgent national problems as the hospital question. I have no doubt it will now take up this task with judgment, consideration, and concentration, and without heat or irrelevancy.