Report of the Department of Health / New Zealand.

  • New Zealand. Department of Health.
Date:
[1959]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the Department of Health / New Zealand. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/144 (page 6)
    the Hospitals Act. It is, however, empowered to make recommendations on such general matters relating to hospitals and the hospital system as it thinks fit as well as on matters referred to it by the Minister. The first meeting of the Council took place on 10 April 1958, and there were six meetings during the year 1958-59. The holding of meet¬ ings every second month has so far proved satisfactory, especially as a considerable amount of work falls on the Hospitals Division in the intervals between meetings, in the way of preparing reports and assem¬ bling information for consideration by the Council. At the request of the Council, Dr C. A. Taylor, Director of the Division of Hospitals, attends all meetings in an advisory capacity, as does also Mr A. E. Galletly, Senior Executive Officer of the Division, who has undertaken the additional duty of acting as secretary to the Council. It is the declared intention of the Council to “make haste slowly”, but during its first year its deliberations have ranged over a wide field including the consideration of draft regulations, advice to boards on the planning and development of building proposals, the provision of “open” maternity beds throughout New Zealand, the distribution and coverage of specialist services, patients’ library services, and the general policy of representation on hospital boards and consideration of individual cases of representation following the review which has been made in respect of every board under the provisions of the new Act. I am already confident that the role of the Hospitals Advisory Council will be an increasingly important one as the years go by. HOSPITAL WORKS COMMITTEE With the coming into force of the new Hospitals Act on 1 April 1958, the Hospital Works Committee, which had been established some four years before as an inter-departmental committee, became a statutory body. Its functions, as specified by the Act, are to make recommendations both to the Minister and to the Loans Board in respect of the major building projects of hospital boards. I have already stated that I regard the setting up of the Hospital Works Committee as one of the most important events in the hospital affairs of the country during the last several years, and it is a source of great satisfaction that Mr Barker (representing the Secretary to the Treasury) and Mr Wheeler (repre¬ senting the Commissioner of Works), who have been my colleagues on the committee since it began, have continued as the representatives of their respective Departments. It is the practice of the committee to examine every major hospital building project at successive stages, from the point at which it makes its first appearance as a proposal submitted by a Hospital Board up to its final appearance as an application for Ministerial approval to accept a tender. During the years in which the committee has been in existence I have personally visited every hospital where building is in progress or being planned, and a large proportion of such institutions have also been visited by Mr Barker and Mr Wheeler. During its earlier years the committee found its time largely occupied by endeavours to achieve progress with building that was urgently needed. The desirability of having a properly drawn up building pro¬ gramme on a national basis has been recognised from the beginning,