RATEPAYERS AND CHRISTCHURCH HOSPITAL.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20921, 31 July 1933, Page 7

RATEPAYERS AND CHRISTCHURCH HOSPITAL.

TO THE IDJTOR Or TZB PJIBSS. Sir,—Surely it is time the ratepayers raised an alax*m about the ever mounting hospital rate levy on one's rates, especially so when one read in "The Press" this morning that the gilded nurses home, gilt with £BO,OOO odd of ratepayers' money, is to be burnished oil with still another £6OOO to £8000! Quiteeasy, you know; just fix another loan on other people's pockets, and the thing is done; Not only this gilded home; but what ox its internal arrangements, secret arrangements of which the ratepayers are told nothing? Will the Hospital Board conne out in the open, and tell us what it costs a head of its residents to run it daily? There is not one person in Christchurch but would' agree that every nurpe deserves the best accommodation. That best could have been supplied in times of acute depression by a building costing far less to construct. However, can the Hospital Board deny that it keeps far too many domestics on the staff of the home? There are no less than eight or 12 waitresses for the dining room (they are talking of employing another two), who are paid such sums as £1 and £1 Is 8d weekly, each of whom has a fully and expensively furnished single bedroom. No wonder the nurses are said not to have enough accommodation, even now. Then, these girls are tumbling over each other all day with nothing to do between meals, beyond keeping the room clean and setting the tables again. They are off duty, and allowed out every day from 2 to 5 p.m., and have every night of the week off until midnight. They get—in town—one full day off each week; it may be any day they can arrange. Next, each waitress gets a full week-end off the premises every fortnight. Added to this, they may have a dance, to which outside people are invited (at the expense of the ratepayers), whenever there is an excuse for holding such a function. When these waitresses take their own meals, they in turn have others on the weighty staff to wait upon them! Surely the time has come when this waste of money and food to keep so many useless people should stop; I say, and without fear of contradiction, that not one member of the Hospital Board would run his or her private home on such wasteful lines, and they would be careful to see to it that any domestic would work her full day without waste time such as I relate. The girls are known to say that they "live the lives of ladies of leisure." I have heard, too, of the daily waste of good food and rnilk at this gilded home; such food and milk could be given to the relief depots.—Yours, etc., DISGUSTED RATEPAYER. July 27, 1933. , [Mr H. J. Otley, chairman of the North Canterbury Hospital Board, stated on Saturday that he was certain- that there was no extravagance jn the administration of the nurses home. The maids' rooms were comfortable but not too large, and not expensively furnished. The rooms yere just such as might be provided any good home. The charge that the nurses' home was overstaffed was also unfounded. The public was inclined! to forget that this was the first occasion on which the board had ijolwd to the future in its building. erected to take another two or t«Fee storeys when required, thebuildhijd to be strong enough to carry 'hem. The internal arrangements as a whole were certainly not extravar it should not be forgotten that, if the building had not been put JJP when it was, all the men cm-1 Ployed on it would have had to be | *®Pt on relief works.] |