REPORT ON HOSPITAL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 41, 19 February 1943, Page 4

REPORT ON HOSPITAL

QUESTION HELD OVER FOR SIX MONTHS

A suggestion that the Wanganui Hospital Board should carefully consider the expense involved in obtaining a report on the management of its institutions, and also that an inquiry of an extended nature would make substantial demands on the time of the hoard’s responsible officers, was contained in a letter received at the monthly meeting yesterday from Dr. R. A. Shore, Deputy-Director-General of Health.

This question was discussed at the November meeting, when the board, by six votes to two, agreed to invite Mr. A. J. Phillips, managing-secretary of the Palmerston North Hospital Board, to visit Wanganui and report on hospital affairs in the board’s district.

The question was again raised at the December meeting, when the board supported a motion moved by the Hon. W. J. Rogers, that action be withheld till certain information sought by the Department of Health had been supplied and an answer received.

After Dr. Shore’s letter had been read at the meeting yesterday the board decided to hold over the matter of a reoor’t for six months.

“I note there are apparently no special reasons for the proposal, but that the board is simply desirous of ascertaining if there are means by which improvements can be effected,” Dr. Shore stated.

“Mr. Phillips is regarded as an outstanding hospital officer and his advice on the lay management of the board’s institutions, and on the office' administration, may be of considerable assistance to the board and its officers.”

Dr. Shore, suggesting that the board should carefully consider his suggestions, added that under the present abnormal conditions, the board’s officers, in common with the hospital staffs, were no doubt working under exceptional pressure.