CARE OF T.B. PATIENTS.

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22197, 6 December 1946, Page 4

CARE OF T.B. PATIENTS.

i,ir - As I explained at the Opera House my memory did not carry me back to the incident of 18 months ago referred to by Mr. J. e. Hughes. He ts hardly to be commended for withholding his criticism until the final meeting of the election campaign. An Hospital Board records t lhat the discussion to which he £ , al ' os ® f r°m a disclosure that miinr, o u S ’- Jnstead of making pro- ' their °, wn T.B. patients, were imposing upon the Cook Hospital and There' righ ts of local patients, intho TR 6 H he ? eight outside patients cost c ? nd the irrecoverable week 1 1 board was nearly £SO a ihl\ W ?n P’oPosod during the discussion tthat, in an attempt .to force other

boards to make provision for their own sick, patients from outside the district should be refused, but this proposal was withdrawn and never put to the meeting. One member did comment that the sick could not be left to die in their homes, but no one suggested that they should be allowed to die on the road, as alleged. As I understood Mr. Hughes at the Opera House, I was accused of having made the latter statement. Without any recollection of the matter to which he referred. I promptly denied having made such a statement and asserted, quite justifiably, that it was a grave injustice,, to m ?t is. perhaps, worthy of comment that at the Cook Hospital booth, where patients and staff have the best opportunity of judging my work and my worth, I gained proportionately more votes than anywhere else in the electorate; at this booth a substantial minority in 1943 was converted into a majority in 1946. H. H. BARKER.