HOSPITAL BOARD SEAT

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23079, 23 July 1940, Page 2

HOSPITAL BOARD SEAT

♦ APPOINTMENT OF MRS W. MACKAY DECISION OF CITY COUNCIL Mrs W. Mackay, a Citizens’ Association candidate at the last election, was appointed by the City Council last evening to fill the vacancy on the North Canterbury Hpspital Board created by the resignation of Mr P. btanley Foster. Mrs Mackay is a formei member of the board, and headed the unsuccessful candidates at the last electl<The Mayor (Mr R. M. Macfarlanc, M.P.) moved that Mrs Mackay be appointed. He said that although, because of past actions of the council, he had stated at one meeting that he would not support any nominee of the Citizens’ Association, the present matter should be considered in the light of the fact that the country was engaged in a life and death struggle and that there should be complete unity within it. It was not the time to put forward now ideas that might have been put forward in normal times. This was a test of democracy. He had had assistance from all parties in matters of common concern, and that spirit of unity must be retained. Mr Foster was a Citizens’ Association candidate, and Mrs Mackay, also a Citizens’ Associat’m representative, was at the head of the list of unsuccessful candidates. The appointment was desirable from the point of view of democracy and unity. • Cr. J. S. Barnett, Deputy-Mayor, seconded the motion. He spoke of the service already given by Mrs Mackay on the Hospital' Board, and said that her previous experience would enable her to step into the running of the board’s work at an important stage of its history. • Cr. M. E. Lyons, for the Citizens’ Association, thanked the Mayor and Deputy -Mayor. “If my memory serves me right,” he said to them, “and although I don’t want to drag in a. political issue, J believe, nevertheless, that] you’re one of us still.” *