HOSPITALS AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 245, 4 July 1918, Page 6

HOSPITALS AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES

(To the Editor.) ,

Sir,—The onclosed paragraph from your issue of .Tune 28 ought io bo of interest to every friendly society member in Wellington and its vicinity. I understand that in Dunedin a scheme by which the mass of friendly society members there have a number of hospital beds in somo way appropriated to their use free of payment by tho individuals concerned lias been in existence for somo years. The paragraph shows that something of the kind is also arranged for in Auckland, but "the hospital secretary says ve.ry emphatically that no such arrangement exists here" (Wellington). Why? In , Christchurch, for three or four years past, nearly all the friendly society members pay annually a fee to their lodges or courts, and the total (a fixed sum) is handed to tho hospital authorities, with the result that when a friendly soc : cty member or his wife unfortunately becomes an inmato of the institution, ho is, on giving due i.otice of his membership, treated absolutely without charge. It must be satisfactory to tho authorities to bo able to depend on a cash sum rather than to have in some cases to dun ex-patients, and it must be a great relief to tho 'alter. What is tho matter with Wellington—tho capital? 'If the board is unsympathetic, alter the board! Common sense and ordinary intelligence should show friendly society members in tho Wellington district the absurdity of fooling about lied Fed. candidates, Socialists, or Labour tickets at hospital board election times, when it is Jn their pever to help themselves. Tlfey will wnit a lons Hine if thpy wait for the object to be acliieved without any effort on their own part.— I am, etc., CANTERBURY."