HOSPITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 3 December 1926, Page 5

HOSPITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS

VOLUNTARY OR COMPULSORY. BOTH SYSTEMS WORK SOME INTERESTING. FIGURES. BY TELEGRAPH - SPECIAL TO THE STAR. WELLINGTON. Dec. 3. When the Minister of Health, the Hon. J. A. Young, laid the foundation stone of the extensive administrative block for the Wellington Hospital today, one outstanding topic .in the speeches was that of voluntary subscriptions contrasted with the existing System of State and local contributions. It was introduced by Mr. 0. M. Luke, chairman of the Hospital Board, who spoke of the days when the institution was administered by benevolent trustees who had to find the money from the general public and found it. A great waste of. energy which could otherwise have been apolicd to hospital administration. We have tried both systems in the history of this hospital,’’ added Mr. Luke, “and we have found that the community cannot afford to stint its hospital services. It was suggested, that the present system would dry up the fount of benevolence, but that is not our experience. Contributions and bequests to the Wellington Hospital since 1916. under the subsidy system, have totalled £27.393, including over £II,OOO last year.”

NEW ZEALAND’S VOLUNTARY SUBSCRIPTIONS.

The Hon. J. A. Young, Minister of Health, followed up the point with a national survey of benevolence to hospitals and a review of the latest figures relating to the finances of New Zealand hospital boards. Their income to March, 1926, comprised of a £580,000 Government .subsidy and £526,000 levied on local authorities. the same period the boards received £lB.000 in voluntary contributions and he agreed with the Wellington chairman tfi at the fount of benevolence had not been dried up by the subsidy and levy methods. Last year’is collections ol fees by the boards (£66.000) was a record, while their expenditure on charitable relief, £12,000 for the whole Dominion, was a. testimony that things were not half so bad as some people would have us believe. The gross expenditure of the boards last year was £1 993,000, while the Government expended £113,000 on its own hospital institutions.

Mr. Young stressed the importance of preventing disease, and to that end expressed the hope that more boards would .adopt the .system of district nurses, who oould ontor 1110 homes of people* and discover wihat were the conditions which led to the illness and to endeavour to remedy them. He pointed to the small decrease, in the mortality of mothers during childbirth as an; indication that New Zealand was improving its position in this respect. Mortality under this head was greater in the country than in the urban .area®. There were 149 deaths of mothers during .child birth in 1922, but last year’s total was reduced to 131. of which. 51 were, in urban areas and 80 in country districts.