"A WHITE ELEPHANT."

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 16, 20 January 1926, Page 11

"A WHITE ELEPHANT."

* — ST. HELENS HOSPITAL. LOSSES DURING TWO YEARS. POSITION OF HOSPITAL BOARD. •"We »would be taking over what is clearly a white elephant." raid Mr. W. Wallace, chairman of the Auckland Hospital. Board, in reference to a suggestion that the board should take over St. Helens Hospital. The above statement was made at the board's meeting last evening. A report forwarded by the Health Department to the board -hows that a loss of approximately £6400 has been incurred by the Department in the administration of St. Helens "Home during the past two years. The scale of charges at the hospital is as follows: — Prior to confinement. £1 per week or •'>/ per day: after confinement. £1 in' per week or 4/0 per day. A minimum charge of £■"? is made for each in-patient, patients attended in thei> own homes teing charged £1. When a nurse attends at a confinement the charge is in . The income and expenditure account showed that the fees collected at the hospital during 192:3----1924 amounted to £1939, and during 1924-10-2.-) to £2324. The chairman declared that any suggestion that the hospital should be taken over by the board, when there was a r>ros]eit of so large a loss, was out of the question. The Department's restrictions rendered it almost impossible to make the institution pay. If the board were allowed to run St. Helens on similar lines to the Public Hospital it mialit be a different matter. The mutter "as referred to the Finance (. ommittee for consideration.