Hospital Bd wants bigger grant

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34087, 26 February 1976, Page 3

Hospital Bd wants bigger grant

The North Canterbury Hospital Board says it is lagging badly as a recipient of Government funds to hospitals.

On population, it says, I it is getting an operating grant $16.6m less than . Otago Hospital, s4.3m] less than Waikato Hospi-p tai, and $2.2m less than Wellington. It also falls behind Auckland, which gets SSI 3,573 more. These calculations were made by the chairman of the ■ I North Canterbury Hospital! Board (Mr T. C. Grigg) and presented by him to the board yesterday. Only two of the 29 hospital boards in the country re-1 ceived a per capita maintenance grant of less, Mr Grigg| isaid. These were the Vincent, I Hospital Board, and the Wairarapa Hospital Board with respective populations of 9230 and 45,940. The North Canterbury Hospital Board had a population of 343,460.

Not only was the North Canterbury Hospital Board getting less, but it was falling further behind each year, Mr Grigg said.

Last year the Board’s grant per head of population was $6.66 less than Wellington. This year the margin has increased to $19.87. Compared with Auckland the margin had also increased, although only slightly, from $2.37 in 1975 to $3.44 this year.

Mr Grigg said that the anomaly was partly explained by the Government commis-

sioning grant, which was allowed to hospitals undertaking big building programmes. This was written back at a rate of 10 per cent each year, and often allowed

hospital boards to make profits. The North Canterbury Hospital Board had a lot of old buildings, and these cost more to maintain. The number of patients treated in them could not easily be increased, and the board had no commissioning grant to draw on. Its new building projects were already considerably delayed, and prospects for loan money for capital works were not good. “The North Canterbury Hospital Board has as many clinical students as Otago, and as many national and regional units,” Mr Grigg said. “I want to make it very clear that I am not saying Otago or other boards should be cut, but I am saying that we must have more money, or the people of

Canterbury will get an inferior medical service compared with the rest of New land.”The chairman of the finance committee (Mr C. F. Whitty) said that the North Canterbury Hospital Board not only ran a teaching hospital, but drew patients from all over New Zealand to its radiotherapy clinic, and its spinal injuries unit. The unit was responsible for all patients south of Palmerston North and from the South Island.

Its renal dialysis team was probably one of the best in Australia and New) Zealand, Mr Whitty said. ; “We are not asking for any more than any other! hospital board in New Zealand . . . but only that we] be placed on parity, at least; with Wellington Hospital.” Cr M. Mc.G. Clark (Christchurch City Council) said that the board’s only fault was that it had been too good at housekeeping. Another board member suggested that Auckland’s tactics might not be too far! away. “If our housekeeping, remains as efficient as it has been, all we are doing is slowly but surely putting our heads on the chopping block,” he said. “We could start talking about closing wards, and make a song and dance about it.” It would do no harm, another member said, to make the Government aware of the altered status of the North Canterbury Hospital Board. It had had one of the most dramatic increases in intakes of student trainees in the country. The ‘building programme was lagging, and in the face of it the Government would cut capital works loans. It sounded like a death knell. The chief executive (Mr J. |G.- Laurenson) said that in the event of hard restraints the spinal injury unit and the Department of Psychological Medicine would probably receive priority. The board decided to ask ' the Government what effect

the loan cut-backs would have on the board’s building! programme. It will also press urgently I for an increased operating allocation, and inform the Hospital Boards Association.