WELLINGTON HOSPITAL EXPENDITURE

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 46, 18 November 1936, Page 10

WELLINGTON HOSPITAL EXPENDITURE

The Wellington Hospital Board’s proposal to raise £600,000 for additions and improvements to the hospital does not meet with the approval of the Pefotte Borough Council, which has two grounds of objection. Tn the first place the hospital levy on the-borough will be increased by £862 annually if the proposal is adopted. Secondly, the council, with other local contributing bodies, not long ago approved of a hospital improvements scheme to cost £150,000 of borrowed money. Now this proposal has been dropped for another to cost four times as much. Tt is admitted that extensions and improvements are necessary, but it seems strange that what seemed an adequate scheme not so long ago should he found to be so inadequate now. Government’s legislation has greatly increased the cost of local body administration, and on top of that comes the prospect of a heavy tax on those local bodies who contribute to the Wellington Hospital.

An inquiry into the incidence of hospital taxation is clearly needed The Petone council, it was stated at Monday’s meeting, has asked for a revision, but the request has not been sympathetically received. The pressure of increasing liabilities on ratepayers, however, must eventually force a demand for a revision of the whole question of hospitals finance. Like the system of local government of which they are a part, the hospitals have far outgrown their original functions and scone, with a corresponding increase in expenditure that has added proportionately to the administrative costs of local bodies The question--which suggest themselves in this connection are fl ) To what extent can the local bodies be relieved of this growing burden? (2) Is hospital taxation fairly distributed?