WAIHI HOSPITAL

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 225, 21 April 1933, Page 2

WAIHI HOSPITAL

Board Deadlock NO QUORUM AT SPEC?AL MEETING Press Association —Copyright Waihi, April If).—The deadlock in oomu'ction with the affairs of the Waihi Hospital continues. The three absen c members of the board, Mrs. E. Hughes and Messrs. C. Copestake and J. Cooper who left the board without a quorum when the final meeting of the year was to have been held on April 11, again failed to put in an appearance at a special meeting convened for last evening.

The absent members, however, made it clear, in a joint letter, that their reason for not attending was because thej< were opposed to a decision of the majority of the board to appoint a new matron in the absence of report of the Health inquiry into the trouble at the hospital, which culminated in notice of dismissal being nerved on the present matron. Miss M. K. Stevensen. It was added that they would be prepared to attend a special meeting in the event of the board undertaking to confine business to the passing of the estimates for the coming year and the payment of salaries and accounts

After remarking that the board could not allow itself to be dictated to by a minority of the members as to the nature .md order of business to be de;Jt with, the chairman, Mr. T. Jowsey, drew attention to the regulations of the Health Department bearing on a quorum. They definitely provided that no business should be transacted at any meeting in the absence uf the necessary number of members. The regulations also stipulated that a special meeting could be convened only by order of the chairman or by a requision from not fewer than five members of a board, which meant that the three members in question could not call a meeting. After some discussion, in which the members present took strong exception to the attitude adopted by the absent members, the secretary was instructed to communicate by telegram with the Health Department asking for authority to proceed with the appointment of a matron, the passing of estimates for the coming year, and the payment of salaries and accounts.