HOSPITAL ACCOUNTS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144709, 18 June 1915, Page 8

HOSPITAL ACCOUNTS.

NEW SYSTEM CONDEMNED

The now* system of book-keeping that is being forced on hospital boards is far from finding general favour, and at the meeting or the Taranaki Hospital Board on Wednesday came in for ] trenchant criticism. The Chairman said that under the 1909 Act a new system was authorised of keeping accounts, and it was stated that the regulations would be duly furnished. Tney wore never furnished. The board accordingly continued the present system, which was meeting the ordinary requirements and gave everyone a clear idea as to how the board stood. In 1913 the Act was amended and a different system authorised. Regulations wore to bo forwarded to the boards ns to how the- accounts were to be kept. These did not arrive until April, 1915, when the board had already made up its accounts for 191-i, yot tfie Audit Department insisted that the regulations should bo retrospective, and that to comply with the Act la&t year’s balance-sheet‘would have to be made up under the new system. The Chairman considered the board had a perfect right to continue as in 1909. and he saw no earthly reason why they should change. The new system would mean that'the audit would cost almost treble the usual amount, and its introduction would result in a very largo increase in the cost of the clerical part of the institution. They would have to*us*: the double-entry system, and there would also bo a vast increase in the compiling of information for the department—information that would be no use to anyone except perhaps to provide some person in Wellington with employment compiling statistics. What, lie asked, was the use of statistics when only one man in a thousand read them i The information required by the Audit 'Department was absurd, and the new ! system would give no clearer indication as to how the money was spent or to what use it was put. The Secretary Oil. Leppcr) said the now system was no use to “Ood. man, dog, or devil.” Tile person who first suggested jt was not in the Audit Department. but in the Hospital Department, and did not deserve the Victoria Cross or oven the Iron Cross. The system now in vogue had served the purpose admirably for the past twenty-five years, and if the books had to he kept under the new system he would go out and they would have to got someone in to do it. Ho emphasised the fact that under the old system everything was running quite smoothly, Tho Chairman said that the hospital boards had been circularised on tho matter and the majority objected to the proposed change. The whole system had been turned down at a conference of hespitaj hoards. It looked to him ns though it was a step towards the nationalisation of the whole concern, which would bo run by the department. The3 T would then sit merely as a committee This would bo regrettable. Hospital boards were different to other local bodies; they were administered from humanitarian considerations rather than from any feelings of aggrandisement or personal advantage. He thought it would he futile to protest, as tho powers that bo had evidently made up their minds on tho matter. Tho Secretary expressed the opinion that tho authorities themselves did not know what they wore insisting upon. Mr.-Brown advocated that an emphatic protest be made. The Chairman said the position was that although the department was to blame for the regulations not arriving until 1915, it took up tbe stand that <£ Thero’s tbo law, and if it did not convey to you what was meant, you should have found out and acted accordingly.” Eventually it was resolved to advise 'the Minister “Hint in tho opinion of this board the method of keeping the board’s account as required by the i Audit Department was contrary to the expressed wish of over 75 per cent, of the hospital boards of the Dominion, being complicated and expensive, inasmuch as considerable extra clerical assistance would be required without in any way giving more satisfactory results than in the past.”