THE HOSPITALS QUESTION.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 212, 21 August 1931, Page 9

THE HOSPITALS QUESTION.

(TO the Editor). Sir, —In your Monday’s issue you re-published a letter previously published in the “Hawke’s Bay Herald,” and signed by “Veracity,” v. ho in your paper has disclosed his identity as Mr. Carl W. F. Vogtherr. You did not, however, publish the whole of my reply to “Veraiity. ” Will you kindly permit, me some space to show that I and others in Napier do know what Hastings wants, and apparently Mr. Vogtherr does not. Hastings wants not only a hospital sufficient for its own requirements, as Mr. Vogtherr suggests and which I had already expressed myself as being in favour of, but it wants the main hospital for the district, which is quite a different thing from one for its own requirements. It has expressed in two public meetings, and a very full petition what it wants, so there can be no misunderstanding. Hastings dons not want —Mr Vogtherr says caunot allow —£82,500. or £lOO,000 to be spent on a main hospital in Napier, nor do I want to see that amount spent if a good hospital giving the necessary accommodation can be built for less. I am just as much in favour of economy in the construcI tion of public buildings and the adj ministration of public moneys as anyi one in Hastings can bo. But Hastings did hot at all mind having £70,C00 spent on a hospital in Hastings. Mr. Vogtherr doe's not want Hastings to pay their own hospital rates, and help to pay ours also. That has not happened yet, or at least not for many years. The argument has been used before, and in connection with the Friendly Society levies and a tally taken over a period of years showed that Hastings moneys were all required for the upkeep of Hastings patients I have no doubt that Hastings is quite content to pay its share for its own patients, but would prefer that its money should be spent in that town. This is perhaps a commercial view, but not necessarily only a Hastings commercial view. It is, in fact, one of the reasons why I personally favour Hastings having a hospital sufficient for its own needs, though I have already expressed my opinion that Hastings has no site suitable for a general hospital and there is probably no suitable site nearer than the hospital hills. There has never been any desire on the part of Napier people as a whole to prevent Hastings having a hospital for its own requirements, but it is not, after all, a matter which rests with the Napier people. But there is, quite naturally, a very strong objection in Napier to Hastings trying to collar all of Napier's old-established institutions, without any reasonable grounds for doing so. When Hastings acquired a site of 18 acres, ostensibly for a Maternity Hospital, ire in Napier foresaw what was coming and knew that sooner or later we should have to resist an attempt to take the main hospital to Hastings. But we did not expect the Hastings commercial spirit to show itself in the way it has done. To seek to take advantage of Napier’s temporary incapacity is an action which, had it been done by an individual in a sporting contest, would have received the merited opprobrium of the whole body of the spectators. That it has been done by a body of business men doos not .reflect credit upon their standard of sportsmanship. —I am, etc., CHAKLES MICE.

Misstatements in the above letter detract from its argumeutive value. For instance anyone who knows anything about the matter at all knows that the site, for the Hastings Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital was acquired for a general hospital and never — not even ostensibly—for a maternity hospital. It is news to everybody that the people of Napier foresaw that the earthquake was corning, for that is what Mr. Price’s statement amounts to, as it. was the wreckage of the Napier Hospital by the earthquake that led to the opening of the question as to where the main hospital for Hawke’s Bay should bo re-estab-lished. To suggest that the Hastings people are being influenced by a spirit

of commercialism in this question is an ungenerous thing to do. Mr Charles Price and those who think with him seem unable to disabuse their minds of the idea that the Hawke’s Bay Hospital is a Napier institution. It is nothing of the kind. The instituti":i belongs to the ratepayers of the Hawke’s Bay hospital district, its purpose is to provide hospital services for their siek and injured, and it surely is their prerogative to decide where the uew institution to take the place of the one completely destroyed by the earthquake, should be built to serve them best. To contend that it should be established either in Napier or Hastings on the grounds of it being a commercial asset to one or the other of the two towns is indefensible, and to its credit that contention has not entered into the arguments brought forward by Hastings. Portions of Mr Price’s letter indicate that he for one is not so altruistic, and that he regards the question as one of some importance from a business point of view.—Li. H B.T.