Hospital Policy

A letter written to the Wellington Hospital Board by the Wellington Labour Representation Committee no doubt fairly expresses the labour view on, or should it not be, against, hospital reform. The committee objects to serious cases being treated in open wards, which are obsolete and unsatisfactory, and holds that private wards should be provided for serious cases whether the patients are able to pay or not. No doubt this is very desirable, but, seeing that the difficulty of finance is not even mentioned, why stop here? It is also desirable that serious cases in public hospitals should, in addition, have a special day and a special night nurse, but who is going to pay for all this? At present the cost of hospitals is rising by leaps and bounds and the taxpayers and ratepayers who find the money have legally the right of use of the hospitals but they, unless “the gravity of their suffering requires it,” will get no better accommodation from the labour dictators than is provided for the pauper and the derelict. This plan according to the Labour Representation Committee prevents “a very offensive introduction of class into a public institution.” This is “class -consciousness” indeed. The New Zealand Railways are another public institution, and it is distressing to find that people cannot travel in the first-class carriages free or by paying a second-class fare. If the Labour Party has its way it will institute a State Medical Service for all classes of the community, those who are socialists and those who are not, and patients will have no right of choice of a doctor, and will be coerced into paying for doctors whose services they do not desire. We believe that Dr. Mayo was right when he said that our public hospitals must either provide suitable accommodation for all classes of the community or else cater only for the poor. The chief opposition to community hospitals appears to come from trades union officials. These gentlemen may have sound views in politics, with which we have no concern, but in regard to hospital policy they are very unbusinesslike and unpractical and the enemies of freedom.