HOSPITAL RATING

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 164, 6 April 1940, Page 7

HOSPITAL RATING

Need For Reviewing System Stressed

The need for reviewing the system of hospital rating to bring about a more equitable and reasonable sharing of cost to the eominiunity, is again stressed by the Wellington Ratepayers’ Association, iu a statement made yesterday. “As the hospital 'board levy imposed on the city council is now such a heavy burden on ratepayers, the association views with concern the proposals emanating from hospital hoards throughout the Dominion that thei honorary medical staffs' now be paid,” ‘the statement runs. “The association asked the Wellington board for particulars relating to salary payments so that members and the public might, have before them some facts which would enable them to judge as to whether the proposals referred to are jus’tified. Detailed salary lists were not asked for. The association has neither condemned nor voiced approval of the latest proposals, but it does state that if the payment, of the honorary staff of is justified, then some means should be found for more fairly spreading Hie burden over a greater field than the 22,000 ratepayers who happen to have their savings invested in homes and other lauded property. “The hospital benefits now being obtained are national in effect, and it is contended that the time has arrived for the whole of (he community to share more fairly the cost of providing these benefits.”