Mangonui Cottage Hospital.

Northland Age, Volume 2, Issue 44, 12 June 1906, Page 3

Mangonui Cottage Hospital.

We do not identify ourselves with opinion expressed by correspondents.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Mr. “Buster Brown,” in your issue of 29th May, confirms the truth of the saying that “Where ignorance is bliss, ’twere folly to be wise,” as also the fact that it is useless wasting ammunition against sand, or wind, or ink on comparative analogy with those who cannot understand it. The last part of his letter (which, by the way, seems to have had a helping hand, who carefully avoids facts) seeks to throw dust in the eyes of ratepayers by supposition. The public want facts, and I propose to give a few. Mr. Brown says in the latter part of his letter, “ I will give it as a little problem to ‘ Locksley ’ and ‘ Rate]layer.’ ” That is the only fact in his letter. lam free to confess that I am puzzled, and am rather inclined to think that he has not only puzzled me but every other ratepayer, probably himself ; that is, if anyone is silly enough to puzzle over purely supposititious figures, which have no existence save in the imagination of Mr. “Buster Brown.” The whole letter may be compared to the children’s puzzle of “If the poker and tongs cost ten shillings, what will a cord of firewood come to ?” The answer is nearly the same but less.

To put the present position of hospital matters clearly, I and everyone I have heard speak about the matter hold that the County Council were not justified in erecting an hospital at Mangonui, costing over £2,000 with its consequent upkeep. That those who first subscribed and agreed to it had no idea of the expenditure it would eventually entail, and then when it was found such expenditure would be so far beyond expectation, it was clearly the duty of the County Council to lay the whole thing before the ratepayers. This was not done, and the Council deprived themselves of getting valuable information, which might have reduced the cost of the hospital to one-fourth, allowing the other three-fourths to metal or repair roads, to get patients to it, or

even widening the Beach Road, and thus save so many people stepping over, probably to become patients. One-fourth refers only to the actual cost of the building, without extras and requisites, which must be found before it can be opened. A way might also have been devised of carrying it on, on the lines of pi’ivate hospitals, but on a much lower scale, and with a comparatively small cost to the general ratepayer, or if supported by the ratepayers might possibly be kept up at a minimum cost, whereas with an expensive building this could not be done. The cost of keeping a £2,000 hospital in good order and in a sanitary condition, without’patients, will probably be more than a £SOO hospital having 20 beds, with the usual proportion of patients in them, or at all events the number which might be estimated, for such healthy counties as Whangaroa and Mangonui, especially considering that there are several ports, having weekly steam communication with a fullyequipped and staffed hospital like Auckland, to which, even when the hospital is built, all the moving population will go, and in that respect won’t save the North Auckland Charitable Aid Board £lO a year. All really bad patients will have to be sent. No doctor will or should take the responsibility of treating many accidents and diseases for an indefinite time, if he can get them easily to the Auckland Hospital, where they would have the attendance of specialists, trained and constant nursing. In a district like Mangonui no doctor could devote his whole time to the hospital, unless he received a very high salary; even then he would have to send somej patients to Auckland, to save himself. That hospital is obliged to admit all who cannot afford to pay, and is quite justified in charging the County (see Hospital Enquiry). It is the duty of the County to recover, if they can.

There is just one sentence in Mr. Brown’s letter which touches on the foregoing, in which he says, “You have shown distinct ill-will to the hospital movement from the start.” I sincerely hope that everyone thinks the same. Looking at the matter as I do, I could not do otherwise in the interests of the Northern ratepayers. But how does that statement agree with the former one, when he tries to show in language within a close shave of Billingsgate that I had not said anything until it was too late f

I now desire to give a few reasons for my opinion. They are real, not supposititious, plain not confusing. Two of these reasons, which in themselves should bo sufficient, are given by “ The Busybody” on the 29th ult.—which letter is very much to the point throughout —and deserving of careful consideration. In it he shows that the Chairman of the North Auckland Charitable Aid Board admits the failure of the Northern Wairoa Hospital, and that six months ago he told the Hokianga people that “ Unless they (County ratepayers) made speedy and substantial efforts to raise funds there was every probability of the hospital being closed.” (The facts were generally known long ago. Yet some of those who ought to have known them best endeavoured to push Mangonui into the same entanglement.) There is no reason to suppose that we would be treated differently. Butin addition to the above we now find that the Waikato Hospital is in even a worse fix, and that the ratepayers are trying to get Government to take over that one, as they state it takes nearly all their rates to keep it up. The foregoing examples surely speak louder 'than any puzzling supposittiious figures. Northern Wairoa and Hokianga should have been a warning to be careful to the most ordinary public man, but “ Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.”

Mr. McKenzie’s letter of the 15th May gives no ground for supposing that the North Auckland Charitable Aid Board will keep up any hospital. The letter is a perfectly safe one. He does not in any way commit the Board, but on the contrary puts everything on the ratepayers, and justly so. The money must come out of their pockets somehow. To my mind he gave a very efficient warning, when he so decidedly objected to the site. Any sensible body of men would have given full consideration to it, as no doubt he intended. Instead it was rushed with a total disregard to consequences, and ratepayers’ interests ignored in a most senseless manner. One word of advice to Mr. “ Buster Brown ” and his coadjutor before I close. Do not again seek to inculcate pernicious, depraved, public morality, such as is shown by some of your supposititious figures. Trying to refute criticism is perfectly fair, but it ought to be for public good, not for destroying moral perceptions.—Your obedient servant, LOCKSLEY. Kaitaia, June Ist, 1906,