HOSPITAL BOARD LEVY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 77, Issue 6566, 15 September 1948, Page 6

HOSPITAL BOARD LEVY

REVERSION TO QUARTERLY PAYMENTS ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST A resolution rescinding monthly payment of hospital levies and reinstituting quarterly payments was placed ■ before. Monday’s meeting of the Waikato Hospital Board by Mr F. L. Onion. The motion was carried by a majority of eight to five. In asking that quarterly payments cf the levy be made as from September 31st of the current yeai, Mr Onion said that this would transfer overdraft charges accruing from the levy from local body ratepayers, who carried 22% of the burden of hospital expenses, to the community as a whole, which supplied the remaining 78% of hospital finance. Mi A. E. Bryant asked: (a) If the Hospital Board was bound by regulation to maintain the present system of monthly payments; and (b) in the case of quarterly levies, when was the date fixed for payment? In the event of quarterly demands being sent out at the same, time as monthly ones, said Mr Bryant, counties and similar bodies would be paying the levy two months in advance and nothing would be gained by tne change. The secretary, Mr A. C. Burgess, said that the date on which notices were sent out was fixed by resolution of the board. Mr H. D. Caro (chairman) said that if quarterly payments were reinstituted the Hospital Board overdraft would have to be £lOO,OOO. Under the present system the rate of interest amounted to only £2 Is 4d, but interest on the overdraft under the system of quarterly payments practised in the past amounted to £587. “If a member sits on a hospital board he should act in the interests of that board exclusively,” commented the chairman, in stating that members should consider the matter from the board’s point of view. “A member cannot sit on a hospital board as a member of a county council or other local body,” he affirmed. Mr R. G. Young expressed the. opirfion that it would be a more progressive move if it was proposed to ask for a reduction in the rate of interest on the overdraft, thus benefiting all instead of only a section of the community. Mr E. G. Guy concurred with this view, adding that the rate of interest imposed on local bodies by the State Bank (4%) was ridiculous. Several members were agreed that the hospital was a public service and should be paid for by the. people as a whole. Mr G. Smith (Huntly) considered that arguments for and against the proposal were balanced. In his reply, Mr Onion reiterated that if the overdraft rate was carried by the Hospital Board it was a charge on the whole community. If carried by a county council or other local body it was a charge on a small section of’the community—the ratepayers. This had been admitted by the members of the board.