[?]sh Deposit is

On Again

[?]sh Deposit is [?]w Rule at [?]va’s Hospital

f-as-you-enter is the new rule when a patient is delivered at Suva’s Colonial War Memorial ital. If no deposit is forth ig, the patient goes to the non g general ward, but treatment : denied. st of the people who have pre [y had to pay have been Euro ;. Many other people who afford to pay the moderate es, including well-to-do In and others, have had a free at the expense of the tax s. spital fees collected have ed about £7,000-£B,OOO per an- Several years ago this pted Mr. A. A. Ragg to propose e Legislative Council that, as fees were so small, and as is, Indians and ex-servicemen irld War I were admitted free, tal treatment might as well be or everybody. the Colony’s early days, when r as still a predominantly Fijian ry, various hospitals were pro by the Fijians themselves, gave the land and in many provided both the labour and laterials for the first buildings, le later, when the Suva Medi fiiool went into action (many before the Central Medical il for Island students of l 1 races was thought of), is also provided medical rs, usually under European /ision. re is a firm Fijian belief that jturn for these generous con ions was a promise, either spe ly stated or clearly implied, Free medical treatment would )vided for Fijian patients, a. later stage, when the Indian unity came into the picture by )f the indentured labour sys free treatment seems to have automatically extended to the is. ody bothered unduly about -al costs until hospital acco :ion began to burst at the in the post-war period, with nstant influx of customers I whom Indians, both in its and out-patients, consti a substantial majority. At the time every branch of expen was soaring, and questions asked about the feasibility of ig some cash out of the more at patients on the free-list, sn the point was raised in the ative Council, there was no dng the general Fijian atti which was accorded some ean support. But the In maintained vehemently that

to let the Fijians off would consti tute “racial discrimination”. Any reference to obligations involved in the taking over of Fijian hospitals for the benefit of all and sundry was brushed aside.

There the matter rested until re cently, with hospital accommoda tion often taxed to the limit and with the cost of medical services still soaring.

It has been suggested that when the new hospital block at Suva materialises everybody who can pay should pay, but this brings up again the complication of deciding how to discover whether a prospective patient can afford to pay or not.

Meanwhile the Public Relations Office has been publicising the new cash-deposit scheme —£2 to £4, ac cording to the length of treatment expected.