SOME RELIEF

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3159, 19 August 1942, Page 4

SOME RELIEF

HOSPITAL MAINTENANCE GOVERNMENT’S INTENTION STATEMENT BY MR MARSHALL Payments to hospital boards for the after-care of soldiers and the inadequacy of the allowance of 6s a day per occupied bed in the case of ordinary patients were matters which were brought before the authorities by the New Zealand Counties’ Association recently and were reported on by the chairman, Mr W. Marshall, at' the monthly meeting of the Ohinemuri County Council, at which a circular from the association concerning the position and the steps that had been taken to relieve the burden on the boards was read. Mr Marshall said he had represented the counties on a deputation, that had met the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Peter Fraser and. the Minister of Health, the Hon. A. H. Nordmeyer. on June 30. The Prime Minister, he said, had given the deputation definitely to understand that the cost of the after-care of soldiers would be defrayed by the State up to 15 s a day and when it had been pointed out that the cost to the hospital boards and through them to the ratepayers, might in some cases exceed that amount, Mr 'Fraser had undertaken that the whole of such cost would be met by the State, Asked if an increase in the a day per occupied bed allowed for ordinary patients would be made, the Prime Minister had admitted that there was a case for an increase, and had given the deputation every reason to believe that the Government would go beyond that amount. “It seems a wrong impression has got about,” concluded Mr Marshall. “There is no doubt in my mind about what the Prime Minister intends to do.”