GREY HOSPITAL BOARD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21365, 19 June 1931, Page 10

GREY HOSPITAL BOARD

REFUSAL TO REDUCE SALARIES RESIGNATION EN MASSE THREATENED. (Per United Press Association.) GREYMOUTH, June 18. The Grey Hospital Board recently decided to effect economics in view of the reduction in the Government subsidy, but not to reduce the staff salaries by 10 per cent. The Health Department, however, refused to sanction the estimates unless the board also reduced wages and salaries. The board then decided unanimously that _it would rather resign than comply with the department’s direction. At to-night’s meeting a letter from the Minister of Health (Mr A. J. Stallworthy) stated that the Government had. decided that the ratepayers should share in the reductions to be made in the board’s expenditure and that the levy on the local authorities should be limited. Therefore, exercising his powers under Section 46 (3) of the Hospitals Act, the Minister required the board to amend this year’s estimates by reducing those for maintenance by £lOlO and by reducing the levies to £8331. The board, however, in accordance with its previous stand, passed unanimously the following resolution:—“ That as the requisition of the Minister of Health to amend the estimates is solely a mandate that the board reduce salaries and wages the Minister be advised that as the board declines to reduce salaries and wages it is not prepared to amend its estimates, and if the payment of the subsidy in consequence of such refusal is withheld each board member hereby undertakes to hand to the secretary of the board his or her resignation.” The chairman (Mr J. W. Hannan) pointed out that the cost per occupied bed, including all salaries and charges, was no higher here than in the hospitals which the Minister quoted as having reduced salaries and also that as the probationers here formed 40 per cent, of the whole hospital staff the rate of pay of the trained staff of the Grey Hospital must be lower on the average than at the other hospitals mentioned. For the department to determine the levy was a usurpation of the functions of the board.