HOSPITAL BOARDS AND DISTRESS

Evening Star, Issue 20983, 23 December 1931, Page 6

HOSPITAL BOARDS AND DISTRESS

AN UNFAIR RESPONSIBILITY [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, December 22. The present system of hospital boards dealing with the distress arising from unemployment was a question that needed immediate discussion by all boards, Dr E. B. Gunson, a member of the Auckland Hospital Board, who is visiting Wellington, said to-day. Dr Gunson contended that the expense of the forthcoming conference of boards at Timaru would be justified because of this question alone, but he considered that discussion on all minor matters should be postponed. * In fact, the conference itself could well be postponed if the Government gave practical effect to the suggestion that the'burden of relieving unemployment should bo placed with the Unemployment Board.

“ Every hospital board member must agree that the present is not the time to spend public money on a hospital boards’ conference for the purpose of engaging in amiable but generally futile proceedings,” Dr Gunson said. “ When the members of the Auckland Hospital Board unanimously agreed to send three delegates instead of the six to which it is entitled to represent it at Timaru it did so in the hope and belief that among the several major items on the agenda paper the discussion of one of vital national importance, that of effectively dealing with the distress arising from unemployment, would lead directly and immediately to a solution of the problem. Dr Campbell Begg, of the Wellington Hospital Board, states that in the Unemployment Board the necessary organisation now exists to tackle the problem. Even if that is so, the fact has unfortunately to be faced that the Unemployment Board has consistently refused to handle the problem, with the result that the hospital boards, and particularly the larger boards, find themselves not only embarrassed financially by this obligation—and I suggest it is an obligation—but seriously handicapped thereby in discharging the routine hospital responsibilities. “ The Minister of Health has indicated that the matter is one for an early solution. In 'the opinion of the Auckland Hospital Board the forthcoming conference offers the best opportunities for finalising the matter. If, in the meantime, sufficient pressure of public opinion can be brought to bear on the Government authorities to forestall the conference by ' ending the anomaly, I venture to say that the Auckland Board will willingly consider a postponement of the discussion by the conference of matters of lesser importance, I shall certainly advocate the postponement of the conference. “ Until such time, however, as practical effect has been given to the repeated demands of Mr William Wallace, chairman of the Hospital Boards’ Executive, that the Government should place the burden of relieving unemployment distress where it should be, i venture to express the opinion that the hospital boards would be failing in their duty if they were tempted to evade their responsibility in the interests of economy, particularly so at this time of national crisis.”