EXPENSIVE CONFERENCES

Evening Star, Issue 20982, 22 December 1931, Page 15

EXPENSIVE CONFERENCES

A TIME FOR ABANDONMENT AH OUTSPOKEN CRITIC k [Pee United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, December 21. Replying to arguments in favour of a conference of hospital boards next February, which were advanced last week by Mr W. Wallace, president of the Hospital Boards’ Association, Dr Campbell Begg, a member of the ellingtou Hospital Board, reiterated that an expenditure of £6OO to £BOO on the conference was not warranted. Dr Begg said that various hospital boards were permitted to send sixty-four voting delegates, while others without voting power could attend the conference. In Palmerston North in 1929 there were fifty-seven bqard members, thirty board secretaries, eight medical superintendents, and five c. _rs of the Department of Health apart from the Minister of Health. The total attendance was 101, and all expenses were paid by the hospital boards or from Government funds. The local expense# were presumably met to some extent by the Hospital Boards’ Association, which during the last financial year secured for its activities £824 from the board funds and £IOO as a Government grant. “ The conference lasted three days, and all hotel and travelling expenses for delegates were met from the public funds,” said Dr Begg. “The conference proposed for Timaru next year will bo similar in composition, although possibly thero will be fewer delegates. The cost can hardly be less than £6OO or £700.”

Dr Begg added that secretaries and superintendents would probably confer on routine hospital matters, while the board delegates would have fifty or sixty remits to consider, many of which would be of a minor nature. “It is doubtful if any complete national and constructive propositions will be submitted, and it is certain that if these involve tho dissolution of some twentyfive boards they will not be passed,” said Dr Begg. “ Yet all authorities, including officers' of tho Health Department, realise that this step is one of the first essentials in the reform of the hospital system. Some of the remits would involve the expenditure of more money if carried.” The Standing Executive of tho Hospital Boards’ Association included representatives of the main hospitals, Dr Begg said. This, body was sufficiently representative, ami should be more effective' as an advisory body than any conference if its members were prepared to take tho onus of their decisions, If tho executive had failed to bring forward practical schemes for a reduction in expenditure, no conference would bo likely to do bettor. Dr Begg added: “1 hope that Air Wallace will endeavour to get this conference cancelled, and will use the ordinary mechanism of tho association to bring forward proposals on vital questions. Tho time for conferences and commissions has passed, and if those who have tho responsibility will not take drastic action on tho information available without regard for political consequences, tho dominion has little ch;. io of being saved from financial disaster, the threat of which becomes more ominous month by month.”