ST. HELENS HOSPITAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21448, 23 March 1933, Page 6

ST. HELENS HOSPITAL

THE SUGGESTED TBANSIMg

HOSPITAL BOARD'S VIEWS $

RESPONSIBILITY NOT WANTED "&

"The department has not opened any 1 negotiations with us for transferring theJS' St. Helens Hospital," said the chairman & of the Auckland Hospital Board, Mr. W, §1 Wallace, yesterday, when flaked his opinion of the announcement by the Minister I of Health, the Hon. J. A. Young, that the Government had approved the recom- I mendation of the National Expenditure H Commission that practically all State hos- '! pitals and sanatoria should be placed under the control of the nearest hospital boards., "" "I discussed the matter very fully some time ago with the director-general, Dr. M. H. Watt, and the board has considered 8 it on several occasions," Mr. Wallace con- R tinued. "I do not believe that the present board would feel justified for a moment 1 in agreeing to saddle its ratepayers with responsibility for the loss of £IO,OOO a | year that the Government is making on "J| .the Auckland St. Helens Hospital. "The board had nothing to do with SI the establishment of the hospital. If it had, the institution would probably have been built and run on very different lines. To-day it has functions that are quite outside the responsibilities of a hospital board. Our only concern is with the indigent, and I can say without hesitation that indigent cases in Auckland are -well provided for under the board's system of paying for their care by private nurses. When there is any reason to expect complications, we arrange to have the patient taken into St. Helens, or if there is no room there, into the general hospital. "When it was first suggested somejjl years ago that we should make ourselvei responsible for St. Helens, the deficit wa« about £6OOO a year," concluded Mr. Wallace. "We were unwilling then, for the reasons I have given, and we are still lesg likely to agree now that the annual loss is much greater."