MAORIS IN HOSPITALS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16227, 29 December 1926, Page 14

MAORIS IN HOSPITALS

INDIGENT’ PATIENTS' FEES WAIKATO BOARD’S BURDEN One of the most serious burdens the ratepayers in the Waikato Hospital district have to bear is the cost of indigent Maoris in hospitals and sanatoria, and frequent appeals have been made to the Health Department and Native Department for relief, but without effect. There are about 8000 Maoris in the board’s district, or about one-iiffh of the Dominion’s native population. Before Maoris can be sent to sanatoria out of the district, the Hospital Board is required by the Health Department- to guarantee the cost of their maintenance. The fees received from native patients are stated to be negligible, and the rates received from native-owned land in the district, and especially Taupo, are very small. The Arawa Trust Board makes a small contribution to the board for the treatment of natives belonging to the Arawa tribe, but the natives concerned represent a small proportion of those who receive treatment. The Native Department pays the Health Department £3600 for the treatment of Maoris. The cost of treating natives in sanatoria amounts to a considerable sum, although no figures are available. A letter bearing on the matter was received by the Waikato Hospital .Board from a white nurse, asking 'for authority to send a Whakarewarewa Maori girl, who is ill with consumption, to the Otaki Sanatorium. The writer said the girl, who was 20 years of age, was one of a family of nine, who lived in one room at Whakarewarewa. Statistics, the nurse said, showed that GO per cent, of the natives at Whakarewarewa were consumptive. She would have applied for the girl’s admission to the sanatorium earlier, but she had difficulty in overcoming her relatives’ prejudices against the white man’s treatment. The board has forwarded necessary application forms and when these are filled in the patient will be sent at the board’s expense to Otaki. A further strong protest against the present unsatisfactory state of affairs has been sent to the Health Department.