HOSPITAL COSTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 96, 24 April 1931, Page 8

HOSPITAL COSTS.

It was a good idea to call a meeting of contributing bodies in the Auckland Hospital Board district to consider the rising cost of hospital and charitable aid, and the discussion, which was friendly to the Board in tone, was profitable. It is everybody's business, and not merely the Board's, to put all possible cheek on this expenditure, and to improve the incidence of taxation, if it can be improved. Several important points were raised. The floating of loans with a currency of only teu years, for the purpose of putting up buildings of much longer life, entails very heavy annual payments to the sinking funds. That only 37 per cent of hospital fees are collected is a matter of moment to local bodies 011 which the hospital levy is made. The cost of outdoor relief is for the moment perhaps the most serious .item of all, and it is not surprising that the conference resolved that this ought to be a charge on the national expenditure. It may be questioned, however, whether members of the conference have reflected upon a probable result of this change. It is true that unemployment has greatly increased the burden of charitable aid, and for that reason the Government should certainly be -called upon to find more money for the relief of poverty so long as unusual conditions last. But to ask the Government to shoulder the whole responsibility is to encourage centralisation. If the Government were to find all the money, would local authorities be so free to administer local relief ? It must be remembered that this work requires special knowledge and takes up a good deal of time. Practical local interest is too valuable to be endangered, even for such a purpose as the conference has in mind.