A QUESTION OF COSTS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 170, 14 April 1932, Page 12

A QUESTION OF COSTS

Hastings Hospital HEALTH DEPARTMENT’S VIEWS Dominion Special Service. Hastings, April 13. The delays that have occurred since the Hawke’s Bay Hospital Board agreed that the Hastings Memorial Hospital should be converted into a general hospital appear to be interminable, and have been added to this week by the receipt of a letter in which Dr. M. 11. Watt, Director-General of Health, makes an inquiry with regard to the board’s proposals in the matter of future maintenance of the proposed hospital. The Hospital Board, contended the doctor, had not submitted concrete proposals in that direction. It had been stated tha? the amount derived from the Kelly bequest (of about £35,000) would provide a sufficient fund to cover the additional annual cost involved in providing two general hospitals, one in Hastings and one in Napier. The department’s opinion was that not less than £lOOO would have to be provided each year quite independently of local rates and taxation. The letter asked for information as to what amount It was thought likely would, be available from the Kelly bequest, and as to when the proceeds of the bequest would be handed over to the board. “I wish to make it quite clear,” the letter added, “that I will not recommend approval of the proposed Hastings Hospital additions unless and until it is shown that no additional cost

to local ratepayers or to the Consolidated Fund is involved in the proposal as compared .with the additional arrangements under which general hospital accommodation for the district was provided wholly at Napier.” “For months we have been battling against odds,” said Mr. Cecil Duff, a Hastings member of the Hospital Board, when the letter came before the board at its meeting this week. “Each time we get just round a corner, another obstacle turns up.” The cost of building the additions to the Memorial Hospital is estimated at about £9OOO, and a contract has been let subject to the approval of the Health Department and the Local Bodies Loans Board.