HOSPITAL BOARD ESTIMATES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 120, 22 April 1931, Page 6

HOSPITAL BOARD ESTIMATES.

/ Ratepayehs in the district from which the Palmerston North Hospital Board draws its maintenance and capital levies are able to derive satisfaction from the estimates which were adopted last week. Certain economies and reduced salaries arising out of recent legislation make possible a demand for a less sum than in the past three years. Nearly three thousand patients were under treatment in the Hospital last year, and the records show the cost per patient for the year ending on March 31, 1930, was £IO.B, this figure being also obtained in the previous year. The average number of beds occupied was 173.4 and the cost per bed £IBO.G, the nearest to this figure being Napier with 195 as the average number of occupied beds, £213 as the cost per bed, and £11.4 as the cost per patient. Although a slightly less sum was collected from patients towards the cost of treatment in the past year, than in 1929-30, the administrative staff bore a greatly increased burden caused through the Hawke’s Bay earthquake, and but for the added duties collections would have been larger. The earthquake has also necessitated the expenditure of more than £IOOO on the Hospital buildings, otherwise the capital levy would have been still further reduced. Regrettable as it is that the staff must suffer a reduction in salaries, which are not over large in ordinary times, the whole community will welcome the relief they will receive from the reduced estimates. There is a duty on the Board, while maintaining its various institutions efficiently, to still exercise the strictest economy.