HOSPITAL FEES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 25 July 1924, Page 5

HOSPITAL FEES.

MUNICIPAL TRADING ACCOUNTS. AUDITOR-GENERAL CRITICAL. (By Telegraph-Special to Star.) WELLINGTON, July 24. The attention of Parliament is called by the Auditor and ControllerGeneral to what ho states is a loose method frequently followed in writing off hospital patients’ fees. In one instance brought under the Audi-tor-General’s notice fees due in respect of the relatives of the chairman and of a member of the board were so remitted. The tax on the community for maintaining these institutions is so great that a more thorough investigation should, says the report, he made as to the capacity of .patients to pay before writings-off are allowed. If this is not done a sinister form of patronage may easily develop in favour of the friends or acquaintances of board members. The matter has been brought under the notice of the Public Health Department, and the DirectorGeneral ha s promptly taken steps to see that every endeavour is matie to recover fees before any applications for writing-off are submitter] in future. The requirements of uniform provision regarding disqualifications and more clearly defined conditions than now exist for the payment of travelling expenses of members of boards are yearly becoming more urgent, and legislation in this direction would lie welcomed by all concerned.

A further matter calling for legislative action is in respect of the sections in the Municipal Corporations Act dealing with the preparation of trading accounts. The present state of the law makes it practically impossible to construct accounts and bal-ance-sheets so that they will he in a commercial form -and ‘at the 1 same time accord with the statutory provisions as now enacted. It is suggested that the simplest way of dealing with the difficulty would he to make it obligatory on the Audit Office to prescribe a. form of trading accounts. MEIKLE CASE REVIVED. After years of petitioning of Parliament for compensation on account of wrongful imprisonment J. J. Meikle has resumed his annual activity. He received in 1910 a grant of £2500 in full settlement of his claims, which he took under protest, as £SOOO had been placed on the estimates for his benefit in 1.908 hv the Ward Govern merit. A select committee in 1922 suggested that this apparently interminable case lie finally settled by granting Meikle £4 weekly for life, hut the Government declined to take action in. the matter Therefore Meikle has resumed petitioning, declaring that he is now a very old man. left 'penniless. and unable to work. His petition was presented by the member for Parnell.