MANAWATU DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1917. A PECULIAR CASE.

Manawatu Times, Volume XL, Issue 137282, 30 June 1917, Page 4

MANAWATU DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1917. A PECULIAR CASE.

Tho ratepayers in the Waipawa Hospital District have had to pay £650 as their share of the damage sustained by a returned soldier patient, Private C. E. Hill, who was severely injured by X-ray burns while he was a patient in the Dannevirke Hospital. As the ratepayers did not themselves inflict tho injuries, it seems rather hard that they —and not the responsible persons, whoever they were—should have to foot tho bill. There are peculiar cirouxastances surrounding this case. Private Hill, whoso injuries according to all accounts were grievous, Sndhug that all attempts to obtain redress were unavailing, commenced an action in the Supremo Oourt for damages. Before the case was called on a certain amount of wirepulling seems to have taken place behind the scones, and it was suddenly announced that a settlement had been effected under which it had been agreed that the Hospital Board as representatives of the ratepayers aforesaid, and tho Minister of Public Health, as representing the taxpayers of New Zealand, had arranged to pay tho sum of £I3OO in two equal paTts as salatium to tho injured man. In making tho announcement the Board referred to the matter as "Hill's very obscure case," and it expressed regret that "under the circumstances it was unable to afford for publication any further details in regard to thia matter, however much it may desire to do so." A singular fact in this connec* '. tion ia that the Hospital Board on its

part and Hill and his relatives on their part, both stoutly asscrveratc that it was neither with their wish nor by their will that the proceedings wore stayed, or that the matter was hushed up in the peculiar manner referred to. But in the same breath tho Board insinuates that one element which actuated it in agreeing to the settlement was that as Hill was uniinancial the action was settled in order to savo a great loss in costs than tho £OSO they eventually agreed to pay. This Mr G. L. Anderson, a relative of the injured man, indignantly repudiates. He challenges the Board to publish tho opinion given to the Minister of Public Health by tho Solicitor-General in this case after he had read the report of the medical exports, half a dozen of whom —men of celebrity in the profession—examined Hill at various times. He also says: "Tho only obscurity which I know of regarding Hill's case is the obscurity with which the Board itself has enveloped it, and it would indeed be well for tho ratepayers and for the Hospital if daylight were permitted to dispel tho fog of the present obscurity." There tho matter remains for the present, but obviously it cannot stay there without injury to the public interest. This is not a matter which concerns tho Waipawa Hospital Board only. As money has been taken from the public funds to assist in recompensing the unfortunate man, it becomes a matter of general concern as to why a precedent should have been created in this case and why this hush money —it can, on the available evidence, bo called nothing else —has been paid iMtoad of the responsibility being determined out in the open and with all the cards on the table.