HOSPITAL RATING

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 129, 14 March 1939, Page 2

HOSPITAL RATING

THE POPULATION FACTOR. REPLY TO FARMERS’ UNION. (Per Press Association). MASTERTON, March 13. An answer to the official statement issued by the New Zealand Farmers’ Union in which it was said that neither the Health Department nor the Hospital Boards’ Association was aware of any recent data being available for the purpose of .contrasting the proportion of hospital rating borne by rurul and urban authorities, was made by the president of the Municipal Association (Mr T. Jordan). ' Mr Jordan said the figures he quoted at the recent conference of the Association in Dunedin were compiled by the Health Department in 1935 and represented levies made upon local bodies for the year 1934-35. They were the latest figures at the time he made his request to the Department for .them. The incidence of the levy had not been altered in the meantime, although the actual amounts had increased considerably. The percentage as between urban and rural areas would be approximately the same to-day. “The fact that the figures appear to have caused some alarm to the Farmers’Union seems fully to justify their publication,” ' said Mr Jordan. “At the conference between the Municipal Association, the Counties’ Association, and the Hospitals’ Association held in February, 1936, to discuss the incidence of hospital taxation, the chairman of the Counties’ AssQciation (Mr C. J. Talbot), who presided, placed on the order paper, inter alia, two remits including the population factor. Remits Struck Out. “The first was that the levy on each local body should be assessed entirely on a population basis, and the second was that it should be assessed as to 50 per cent, on a valuation basis. The chairman said, and it was recorded in the minutes, that these remits had been included in order to have them dealt with for all time, and they were unanimously struck out byi the three associations. “The. attitude of the Municipal Association to these remits has had the substantial and disinterested support of the Commissioner of Taxes since 1929, when he concluded an inquiry into the incidence and computation of hospital levies with these words: “To adopt population as a factor for rating purposes would be wholly indefensible.’ ” At Mr Jordan’s request, before the conference of 1936, the Department had taken out figures for some of the hospital districts, including the population factor, and these showed that the effect would be materially to lessen tho burden on larger and more prosperous boroughs and counties at the expense of those much less able to pay. .The three associations were unanimous that the proper basis upon which the hospital levy should he made was ability to pay—in other words, upon salaries and wages. To press that view is the object of a deputation from the Municipal Association and the Counties’ Association waiting upon the Minister during this week. Tho Legislature had already adopted this basis in its Social Security Act, which provides for part only of the hospital expenditure of the day.