HOSPITAL COSTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 281, 27 November 1941, Page 5

HOSPITAL COSTS

DOUBLE TAXATION

POSITION IN DOMINION

Contributions from the Social Security funds for hospital service fall far short of the cost to most, if not all, of the hospital boards, says the latest issue of the Accountants' Journal, which points out that the jplati has greatly aggravated overcrowding in hospitals because of the (extra demands for treatment.

"The present system of levying! local bodies for a large proportion of hospital expenditure should be abolished and the duty of providing the revenue should be placed on a much broader democratic basis," adds the journal. It declares that the Social Security fund is the appropriate source from which the charges should be met, on the ground that when the legislation was inaugurated its basis was that every citizen !should pay social taxation according to his individual capacity, but as matters stand a section of the community is subject to double taxation for hospital service.

"Whether the Social Security fund, a the State or the local bodies nave to a foot the bill, the people have to find § the money," says the journal. "By | shifting the burdens ratepayers as a class may obtain temporary relief, | but the community as a whole can- i] not dodge its responsibilities. Apart J from the point as to whether more 3 efficient methods cannot be intro-1 duced in regard to hospital adminis- | tration it is a sad commentary that s in a young country like New Zea-'lj land, endowed by Nature as she is, j> there should be such a crying need for medical and surgical treatment. In our opinion it is a question as t.o whether we should not wisely attack some of the root causes of our dependence on liospital services rather than confnrae to spend hundreds of thousands on trying to remedy the maladies after the damage has been done."