AMBULANCES IN WESTLAND

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28019, 13 July 1956, Page 16

AMBULANCES IN WESTLAND

Substantial Rise In Charges GREY HOSPITAL TO PROTEST (From Our Own Reporter) GREYMOUTH, July 12. The Greymouth Hospital Board decided at is monthly meeting to protest to the Health Department against the charges suggested by the department’s special ambulance committee, and approved by the Cabinet. It was stated that in some cases the increases in ambulance fees amounted to 100 per cent., and it was unanimously agreed that the new charges were “grossly unfair.”

Two members of the board —Miss M. Anderson and Mr J. T. McPhee—suggested that the board should advise the department that it did not intend to impose the new scale of charges. The chairman (Mr J. E. Stokes) said there was a general increase of 75 per cent, on the present charges, and, in addition, there would be a special mileage rate. The present charge for an ambulance service in the Greymouth borough was 7s 6d, and in future it would be 12s, plus 6d a mile each way. It cost the board £745 to operate the ambulance last year, but only £4OO was received in fees. The balance had to be written off as bad debts, he said

Many persons using the service were age beneficiaries, pensioners, or persons who died in hospital. In these cases, as in accidents from outside centres, it was often .impossible to obtain fees, he added.

Members generally were of the opinion that sick persons who were compelled to ride in an ambulance should not be penalised, and that every hosoital board in the Dominion would have to object before the Government changed its decision.