SUING FOR PAYMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18895, 18 December 1924, Page 13

SUING FOR PAYMENT.

HOSPITAL TREATMENT FEES.

LEGAL ACTION BY BOARD.

The casual manner in which some young men meet their financial obligations was tersely commented upon at the Auckland Hospital Board meeting, when the fees committee reported having ordered legal proceedings to be taken against 15 persons, who owed fees for medical attention at the hospital. Referring to a meeting of the committee, at which a number of delinquentdebtors appeared to explain reasons ior non-payment, the chairman, Mr. W. Wallace, said it was surprising to hear sevetal single young men professing their complete inability to pay. One striking case was that of a young jnan whose ex cufe was that he owned three sections of land at Blockhouse Bay and another at Onetangi, entailing a weekly outlay u £2. tie maintained that his case was one of genuine hardship. (Laughter.) The speaker and Mr. G. Baildon, the oilier member of the committee present, gave him a very bad live minutes, at the close of which he was informed that if he failed to pay up at a similar rate per week, a summons would be issued against him. There was another case, Mr. Wallace continued, of a young man who was ear iing over £5 per week and who steadiest ly professed his inability to make any offer at all. When pressed fgr his reasons, he informed the committee that lie had been told he need not pay and that the board could not make him pay. It was intimated to him that if he did not pay the whole amount oft' at the rate of 30s per month, legal actiou would be taken against him. Mr. Wallace added that nine judgments were obtained against outstanding debtors in the. Magistrate's Court that day. One was a case of a man who owed the board 3s 6d and who defended tin- case "out of pure cussedness." The proceedings cost him 20s. (Laughter.) The committee's report showed that the fees collected during the past months, namely £24,000, exceeded the amount estimated to be collected for the "whole year. The total amount of fees v/iitten off and reduced for the current year was £42,682.