PLUNKET SOCIETY.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 September 1924, Page 5

PLUNKET SOCIETY.

LIMITATION OF SUBSIDY. AN INCREASE URGED. z (Bv Wire—Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, Last Night. Some time ago in the House Mr. R. tMaatera (Stratford) aske>. the Minister for Health whether he would, in view of the fact that the Government subsidised hospital boards £1 for £1 on donations and district nurses through hospital boards a like amount, abolish the present system of limiting the amount of the eiibsidy to the Plvnket Society, so as to provide for a subsidy of £1 for £1 on all donations made to the society, and thus enable the members of the society to extendf their work t-.» centres where it w«a not at present operation. To-day the Hon. Sir Maui Pomare replied: “It is regretted that the proposal cannot be entertained. The Government does not permit societies to handle moneys which have been collected to hospital boards for the purpose of a subsidy being obtained thereon and handed back to the societies to expend. How•ever, hospital boards are permitted, with the approval of the Minister for Health, to make grants to such societies where At is shown that they are doing work which would otherwise fall upon hospital boards, in which case, as hospital boards’ funds are made up partly of a levy on local authorities and partly of a Government subsidy, the Government thus contributes automatically to any euch grant. It is not thought that the society would wish that the responsibility for the payment of an annual grant of £125 for each nurse, together ■with a refund of railway fares, at present made by the Health Department, should be transferred to hospital boards. As far as the department is concerned such a course would have the effect of relieving it of approximately half its pi esent expenditure.”