HOSPITAL COST

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 68, Issue 5943, 15 May 1944, Page 2

HOSPITAL COST

ATTITUDE OF RAGLAN COUNCIL There will be at least five candidates for the two seats on the Waikato Hospital Board for the combined district of Raglan County, Huntly Borough and Ngaruawahia Borough. It was decided at a meeting of the Raglan County Council to nominate two councillors, Mr H. W. Wilson (Waingaro Riding), a sitting member, and Mr W. J. Lusty (Whaingaroa), while it was intimated by Mr E. Lowe (Pukemiro) that he had been nominated by a meeting of electors in Huntly earlier in the week. Two other candidates announced are Messrs B. Bunn and S. S. Saulbrey, of Ngaruawahia. At the Raglan County Council meeting last week unanimous support was given to a resolution carried at a meeting of rural local body delegates urging county councils to ensure the nomination of candidates who would be committed to the reduction of hospital costs wherever possible consistent with the health of the people. A circular letter from the Oroua County Council asking that the Farmers’ Union, as representative of rural interests, should organise for direct action to prevent the enforcing of the Local Elections and Polls Amendment Act, was received, criticism being levelled at the legislation as unjust and inequitable. The demand of the Whakatane County Council for setting up a Royal' Commission to investigate and advise on the latest legislation and local body contribution to hospital administration was unanimously approved.

It was alleged by the chairman, Mr Hallyburton Johnstone, that some members of the Waikato Hospital Board had been rather extravagant in authorising expenditure. Mr H. W. Wilson, a member of the Hospital Board Finance Committee for the past 12 years, protested, declaring that most board members were also local body members and payers of rates. “We don’t fire our own money away,” he said, adding that a comparatively new member had advocated expenditure of about £l6OO on improving a driveway to the Rotorua Hospital entrance. Mr Wilson said the board as a whole had rejected the proposal as unwarranted in the present state of the finances.

The chairman said there was no denying that the new legislation had enabled borough residents to outvote county ratepayers, who paid a very heavy tax for hospital administration.

Mr R. J. Glasgow remarked that he was pleased to see that the action of the Farmers’ Union was being supported by local bodies. The union had sought to organise rural opinion, and he hoped it would succeed.