FALSE CLAIMS AT HOSPITAL

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23111, 29 August 1940, Page 3

FALSE CLAIMS AT HOSPITAL

—♦ — CHARITABLE AID SOUGHT REPORT ON THREE WOMEN TO BOARD Complaints were made at a meeting of the North Canterbury Hospital Board yesterday that three women had obtained benevolent assistance from the board to which they were not entitled. They had failed to disclose other sources of income, and the board was asked whether it wished to prosecute them. The cases were set out by Mrs i. Green, chairwoman of the benevolent committee. After detailing the facts about the three women, she said: “It is desired also to mention that in the opinion of the benevolent committee there is too much overlapping in the matter of granting of relief m Christchurch. The legal duty of giving benevolent assistance is laid on hospital boards by the Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Act, and the board has a well-run and humanely administered department. Here we have much valuable recorded information, and we have the means of checking up on applications and keeping in touch with people in need. “I wish to make it perfectly plain that on a needy, person making application for help the measure of assistance given is adequate. This being the case, it is not necessary .for further help to be asked from other charitable sources. Unfortunately, we find that certain people go from one to another, which plainly shows needless overlapping and unnecessary organisations." Mr L. B. Evans, chairman of the board, asked Mrs Green whether, if the women had lied to the board, they could be cut oil the board’s list. Mrs Green said that they and their families could not be allowed to starve. The board had no option but to give them assistance. Mr H. H. Holland said he thought it would be wise for societies giving relief to poor people to seek the board’s advice on the facts of the various cases. Mr T. Nuttall said that there would always be impostors. He did not think that church and other charitable organisations should be debarred from doing their work, and he hoped that the board would err on the side of mercy. Mr Evans said he did not think there was any intention to prosecute. Mrs Green said that there was no desire to interfere with assistance given by church organisations. It was public funds about which she was concerned. Mrs Green’s report was adopted.