GRANT TO PLUNKET

Press, Volume C, Issue 29520, 23 May 1961, Page 16

GRANT TO PLUNKET

Operation Of Hospitals

IN.Z. Press Association; WELLINGTON. May 22. The Government has approved a grant of £5871 to the Plunket Society to help meet operating costs of its six Karitane Hospitals from 1957 to 1960. the Minister of Health (Mr Shelton) announced today. Karitane Hospitals were registered last September as class B private hospitals under the Hospitals Act, 1957, after a report published last year by the consultative (Finlay) committee which inquired into infant and preschool health services. This had recommended that Karitane Hospitals should be classified as private hospitals and receive the appropriate rate of hospital benefit. Mr Shelton said the society had now asked the Government to liquidate the deficits on the operation of these hospitals for the four years 1957 to 1960. the request being based on the grounds that application for increase in the previous benefit of 13s 6d a day was first made in relation to "the 1957-58 accounts and that negotiations were suspended until the setting up of the consultative committee. Mr Shelton said the Government had decided that a grant would be paid to the Plunket Society assessed on the basis of what would have been paid to it had the Karitane Hospitals been registered as private hospitals and received the appropriate hospital benefits for the period 1957-60.