SHIRKED RESPONSIBILITY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 23 December 1924, Page 5

SHIRKED RESPONSIBILITY.

IN HOSPITAL-MATTERS.. “It appears to me that the Government for some time has been trying to throw back all responsibility for expenses upon the. hospital boards,” said Mr. W. Wallace, chairman, at a meeting of the Auckland Hospital Board. The remark was prompted by a written request from the Director-General .of Public Health that the’ board should guarantee the railway fares of patients sent to departmental sanatoria. Mr. J. Rowe criticised the peculiarity of the Government attitude in asking the hoard to do everything possible for T.B. cases, while at the same time, he said, every possible obstacle was thrown in the way of the hoard carrying out such work.; It was quite wrorig for the Government to try to shift responsibility on to the hospital: boards. The chairman said the Auckland Board woulc) have to go fully into the question of establishing a sanatorium fpr this district. He was sure that a suitable site could be found, and relatives of patients would more willingly send patients to a local sanatorium, than to one down the South Island. The sanatoria were not for chronic con. siimptives, and, as far as the Auckland hoard was concerned, no patient had been sent unless there was reasonable hope of benefit being derived. At present, however, there were ca yes where friends hesitated to send the patients a long distance away, hut if there were an Auckland sanatorium more could be done by way of checking the spread of the disease. He quoted a case where a girl in a fruit shop had come direct from attending a consumptive mother at the back of the shop to sell fruit to school childi’en , Mr E. ll.'Potter said the hoard had already decided on erecting a small sanatorium. .

The departmental letter was “received.”