HOSPITAL BOARD’S MILK

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 287, 4 September 1928, Page 3

HOSPITAL BOARD’S MILK

PURCHASE OF LAND Dominion Special Service. Palmerston North, September 3. At to-night’s meeting of the Borough Council a letter from the Palmerston Hospital Board advising that the board was extending its farm by purchasing an additional 108 acres, comprising 15 acres high land and 93 acres river flat, was received. The purchase money would be £l5OO, £750 of which would be levied on local bodies and would be provided for on next year’s estimates, so that an increase in present capital levy would not be necessary, said the letter.

The Mayor (Mr. A. J. Graham) explained that the board had made a prolit of £374 last year, and that milk and cream supplied to the hospital and Old People’s Home had amounted to value to over £9OO. It was thought/ essential that milk obtained for the hospital should come from its own farm on account of tuberculosis and other diseases, and at present this was being obtained at Is. per gallon. The average daily supply was 42 gallons, and the average daily consumption was 60 gallons, the balance being purchased at between Is. Id. and Is. 2d. per gallon. The proposed purchase was for the purpose of enabling the whole supply to be obtained from the farm. Opposition to the proposal was forthcoming from Councillor M. A. Eliott, who maintained- that not nearly sufficient information had been placed before the council, and this view was upheld by Councillor A. E. Mansford, who produced a copy of the 1927 bal-ance-sheet of the Hospital Board, in which it was set out that the board had paid £567 in wages on the farm of 44 acres, and had made £532 profit. After further discussion, a proposal by - Councillor W. L. Fitzherbert that the whole council as a special committee meet the board to go into the matter with the board was adopted.