HOSPITAL SCHEME

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 172, 17 April 1937, Page 11

HOSPITAL SCHEME

Expenditure on “Too Lavish a Scale” - COUNTY CHAIRMAN’S VIEW Extravagance by the Wellington Hospital Board in drafting its new building proposals was alleged by the chairman, Mr. D. R. Hoggard, at a meeting of the Hutt County Council yesterday. “I suppose the bulk of the ratepayers in the Hutt County are living in accommodation which is costing less than £lOO a bed,” said Mr. Hoggard. “Many of them are living in accommodation of a value of £25 a bed. Some cannot afford electric light, or septic tanks, and they have the most primitive water supply. Many farmers’ wives have to do their washing in oil drums out in the open. These are the people who are going to be asked to provide accommodation for nurses at £615 a bed. “It seems to me that the proposal so far as the nurses’s home is concerned is on far too lavish a scale. I think one is entitled to infer that there is similar extravagance in connection with the proposed boiler-house and the proposed hospital. If the hospital board satisfies us that it is right and proper for it to go ahead with these three buildings, I think we are entitled to ask that they modify their ideas and give us something the cost of which will be more reasonable. “There is, however, another aspect of the question,” added Mr. Hoggard, “and that is whether it is wise to develop the existing hospital when the trend of population in the hospital district must be toward the north. The matter has now reached this stage: The hospital board is preparing a report on the alternative proposals of going on with the development of the existing Wellington Hospital or of establishing a new hospital in the Hutt Valley.”