HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE AID.
The annual report of the Hospital and Charitable Institutions of the colony, by the Assistant-Inspector (Mrs Neill) was laid before Parliament yesterday. With regard to charitable aid, the report shows that the total cost of administration during the past year was £88,848, an increase of £8975 over tue figures for the previous year. It is, the report remarks, satisfactory to note that outdoor relief has decreased by £3247, and that out of the total increase of £12,222 for indoor relief, £9100 has been spent for building purposes. The amount distributed in outdoor relief in 1899 (the year the Old-age Pensions Act came into force) was £50,850; in 1901, £42,181; and in the year ending 81st March, 1902, £37,453. During the lost few years a change has taken place in the administration of the' Wellington Benevolent -Trustees, and their expenditure on outdoor relief has been reduced from £5664, in 1899 to £3380 in 1902. The Otago Benevolent Institution in Dunedin shows' no sign of progress. Rations are still dealt with by the old contract system. The Costley Home (Auckland) is managed with economy; ?ret a.t the same time it is but a comfortess refuge for old age, At the Caversham Home (Dunedin), also, the desire for economy prevails over good management, and Mrs. Neill describes the state of things there as "the state of things that existed in the English workhouses some thirty or<forty years ago." The Jubilee Home, Chrißtehurch; is the most really homelike institution for the aged in New Zealand. As to the Napier Old Men's Home, Mrs. Neill- can only repeat what was said. in last year's report: "It is a painful experience to visit it." The woodwork is, sho adds, infested with btigs, and the place should be burned down. The Assistant-Inspector again refers to the necessity for the establishment of a central receiving hospital or infirmary (one in each island) "where the incurable, helpless, and bedridden men and women could be drafted and placed under the care of nurses, not left to the ignorant and oftentune cruel tendance of a fellow-inmate." The patients* maintenance in this central hospital could be a charge on their respective Charitable Aid or Hospital Boards.
HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE AID.
Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 47, 23 August 1902, Page 5
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