THE NEW PLYMOUTH HOSPITAL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 3964, 11 February 1882, Page 2

THE NEW PLYMOUTH HOSPITAL.

A KETUitx was read at the last meeting of tho Hospital Hoard, showing tho names of places from which poisons have been admitted as patients to the New Plymouth Hospital from the Ist August, 1881, to 31st January, 1882. The numbers are as follows:— New Plymouth, 5; Hell Block, I: W.iit.im, 2: luglowood, ."»; Wnipuku, 15: Midhiiht, i>: Stratford, 1: Ultham, 2: Normanby, 5; Haw era, 4; Manaia, 'A: Opunake, 2: Pungarehu, 1: Patea, 1; Tataraimaka, 1. It will thus be seen that New Plymouth, Inglewood, Midhirst, and Normanby h.ive sent the same number of patients each — viz.. f>; and Ilawera comes next with 4. It is evident, therefore, that a considerable proportion of cases admitted into tho hospital oomes from districts outside the Hi trough of New Plymouth or County of Taranaki; and this fact raises a point of some importance in connection with the present management of tho hospital. The financial arrangements at present with the Counties and Boroughs are that those bodies receive from tho colonial funds a subsidy of os. for every £ received in rates. Last year, however, the subsidy was virtually stopped, by charging the expenses of the hospital and charitable aid against it. By a clover manipulation of figures, the Government ma.de out that instead of any of the subsidy being due to the County or Borough there was really a small deficit on account of Hospital and Charitable aid expenditure. A serious blunder, however, has been made in the Treasury by charging all the expenses of the Hospital against this district, when the Hospital was also used by the Hawera, Normanby, and Patea districts. It is evident, therefore, that if the expenditure of the Hospital embraced all those districts, the subsidy should at least have been equivalent, or each district charged j>ro ruta. During the ensuing session of Parliament probably the whole question of Hospital and Charitable Aid will be settled on a permanent basis, and it is high time the question was legislated upon, for during the last fewyears the system has been a miserable makeshift, and each district has been at the mercy of the whims and fancies of the Treasury officials.