HOSPITAL MERGER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22627, 15 January 1937, Page 12

HOSPITAL MERGER

THE WAT HI PLAN CHANGE BOUND TO COME COUNCIL DECLINES CONFERENCE [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN' correspondent] WAIHI, Thursday The question of proposed amalgamation of the Thames, Coromandcl and Wnihi hospital districts again came up for discussion at a meeting of tho Waihi Borough Council last evening, when communications wore read from the Waihi Hospital Board and the Waihi Chamber of Commerce asking that the delegates to the recent commission, which sat at Waihi, bo requested to meet representatives of the above bodies to discuss tho proposals and council's decisions thereon. It was decided by five votes to one to reply that no good purpose could be served by continuing tho discussion. The Mayor denied the charge that the council had acted ir>. a high-handed manner and had changed its mind in icgard to amalgamation. The council for 20 years at least had supported the fusion of tho districts as a means of relief from tho very heavy burden imposed upon it by way of hospital levy. Tho Hospital Board itself in the past also had supported amalgamation. Opposition to the scheme had only recently come upon them. No "hush hush" policy had been adapted and to prolong the discussion would bo merely a waste of time as it was very probable that tho commissioner, Mr. L'\ H. Levicn, S.M., had by this time completed his report. Amalgamation, added the Mayor, was tho definite policy of tho Labour Government and was bound to come; the movement for the extension of the hospital boundaries was doomed to failure from the outset. The council's delegates had acted in a most equitable manner in acquiescing to tho proposals for the amalgamation by the hospital districts. The town clerk, Mr. JO. C. Westbury, in reply to Mr. F. <J. A. Campbell", explained that under the proposals £'looo of golfl duty would bo transferred from the general account to the hospital contributions account. Taking the figures of the present year as a basis the levy in the first year by the amalgamated board would bo £826, plus £IOOO gold duty. This would mean a saving of £436 to the borough council. The sum of £IOOO transferred from the general account would be made up by an addition to the general rate, but the total rates would benefit to the extent of £<l36 already mentioned if the council decided to allow tho total rate to remain as at present.