ST. HELENS HOSPITAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19980, 23 December 1926, Page 12

ST. HELENS HOSPITAL.

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE. . AUCKLAND BOARD’S REFUSAL. (Special to Daily Times.) AUCKLAND, December 22. In the opinion of the Chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board the authorities of the St. Helens Hospital are not shouldering all their responsibilities, but are shuffling some of them on to others. This opinion wss expressed by Mr Wallace at a meeting of the board last night when requests were received from the Medical Officer of Health for anti-rjatal treatment for mothers, and particularly for assistance regarding the methods of inquiry into the circumstances of the patients. The board had also before it a request for free X-Rav treatment for St. Helens’ patients. "I am sympathetic. said Mr W. Wallace, “but at the same time it appears to me that the St. Helens people are pushing a lot of their work on to the board. If the St. Helens Hospital is going to fulfil its functions it should supply these requirements itself. As far as X-Ray treatment is concerned it will have a big bearing on on maternity work in the future, and anything done in this direction will be of grea*. benefit to the patient. The whole tendency of St. Helens is to shuffle then responsibility on to the Hospital Board. Some time ago the Health Department wanted us to take over the St. Helens Hospital and run it on its own lines under which it was losing £6OOO a year. We declined, and I think now it wants to make good a large portion of that loss at the expense of this board.” . On the motion of the chairman it decided to inform the department that tne matters mentioned in the request were for the St. Helens Hospital itself to deal with.