A HOSPITAL FOR HASTINGS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume IX, Issue 84, 24 March 1919, Page 4

A HOSPITAL FOR HASTINGS.

Ito the editor! Sir,—The hospital collection last Saturday reminded me that the question ot providing a hospital lor Hastings is as tar advanced as it wqp some luuf-dozen years ago, when the Hastings Operatic Socioly started the tiuid by raising i.lOO. At various periods, public men, including Mayors and Councillors, have talked round the proposal. and dropped it in the tired, characteristic Hastings way, :m<| dolast meeting ;i lew months’ buck, generated into a vulgar persona)' dispute. Tlie inleiest that the members, of Napier Hospital Board, take in Hie proposal, amounts to less than nothing, and all they do is to point to the advantages ot the Napier Hospital. It is not only incnnveiimnt »ut also inadvisable, to send some class <il patients to the Napier Hospital, and in this respect I speak ot my own experience. A largo number of Hastings people have not only contiihuted tiv the Napier Hospital by way <4 rnt/in and donations for many years, and for which they have not p>-rsomill.v n-'.-eivisJ a penny ot lictu-lit, but have also had to pay heavy bills to local doctor* ami nurse* J .tin not infering that local doctors and mu -<■* do nut earn their money, hut J do say that to people in poor cii-i-umstani-ws these bills are a severe burden. JP.iill-n-dozen really serious men could get :i hospital for Hastings in ipiick order, arid it is up to them to move, for I am aliaiil that Mayoi- ami (oumdlois will never nci-omplish it. As :i preliminary step, I would suggest, that a lull to create Hastings a separate hospital district ho brought forward at the next session <il I’nrlinnii’iil the, time for cutting the painter from fb-■ Napier Hospital disfriet is over-ripe I am, etc . L. W. FOWLER.