TIMARU HOSPITAL

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, 12 May 1925, Page 4

TIMARU HOSPITAL

To the Editor of “Tho Timaru Herald’' Sir,—ln my letter uppoanng in your issue of 24tli April, amongst other matters, 1 mentioned ivhat I considered a grave aspect of the “one man system. Unless Mr Leslie is absolutely astray in his facts, I think his letter, which appeared m your issue or • Saturday last, should bo quite sumcient to show that tho danger 1 suggested is a very real ono, and one that even an apathetic public can haidly ignore. It is interesting to notico by this morning’s paper that. at. Icftsu one local body is beginning to sit up. and take notice. , • ■. - . Mr Leslie mentions only four cases, and, although, these . should bo moro Ilian sufficient to arouse public coitgeiousness to tho need for a thorough inquiry, it is hardly possible that he has quoted .all tho cases 'yhei’o a lh J 1 vestigatiou would bo advisable. However i think Mr Leslie has given us enough food for serious thought on that sido of the subject, and I will therefore, in tire meantime, oonimo my criticism-mere especially to the actions of tho chairman and, the administrative policy of the Hoard. T ,• In his combined reply to Mr Leslie and mvself, Mr Lotts states that it is a rule of his not to reply to anonymous correspondents and that ; he to make electioneering capital put of a controversy which is assuming tho character of an ambushed and obviously inspired personal attack, etc. Ut course Mr rotts has a peneefc right to use his own judgment as to tlio advisability or otherwise of repaying to any criticism directed agpnst the Board or against him as chairman, but as far as I am concerned, I can assure him that I have no personal intercut in the matter, that I have never had the privilege of meeting him, in fact J. do not even know lain by sight. Any criticism therefore that I have to mane is not directed against the Itev. • Wilson Potts in hjs private capacity but as chairman of the Hospital Boaid, upon my knowledge of him and his methods gained mainly through the columns of your paper m following the reports of the Hospital Board meetings, from his own writings and from the reports of his speeches. That my faces may not HI bo correct I freely admit, and I can only express my regret that Mr Ports’ s rnvmiamo rule will not ponmt hint to correct any errors I may make and so enlighten me, and, with me, tho ratepayers of Tjmaru. As a ratepayer (a Qualification, by the way, which Mr lotto does not possess! whose money is being spent in the maintenance of ricapital, I claim the right to criticise the actions of the ■ Board wiien pubiiu money is being spent m wha appears to me to be an extravagant and inefficient manner, and methods are adopted winch i liola shouiu not be tolerated in any public body having the expenditure ot nearly £50,001) pei annum in its hands. , Speaking generally I would say that (like tho medical department) the Board has developed, and is developing even more rapidly, tar too much into a “ono man” Board —tnat far too much of the Board s work is done in committee, and that , in the administration of the Board’s affairs and the judicious expenditure of. such a large amount of public money wo need an unbiassed, keen, capable man, With a business training at the head ot affairs. I may be wrong, but to me Mr Potts does not appear to possess the necessary qualfications. With your permission, Sir, I will now deal in detail xyfth a few points bearing on the subject, and in doing eo i need not go very much beyond Mr Potto’s, own address to the citizens qt Timaru of Monday 27th bit;, fot, thts• purpose. In his address, after a short preliminary cantor, Air Potts goes on to say that he “made a statement in replying to recent interested criticism of the medical pokey of the -Board, which statement was endorsed by colleagues/’ Now, Sir, I liola that it is not within the province of any Chairman of ativ Board, when grave charges are niacle against that Board, to take upon himself the sole responsibility of replying. A serious matter of the kind should be put before the full Board aud thoroughly discussed, and the matured opinion of the Board conveyed to the person making the charge through the proper channels. This case, together with tlio purchase of the motor ambulance, referred to m my last letter, are cases where I consider the Chairman had no right to act on his own responsibility. By his actions he lias saddled i.ho other members of the Board with a serious xesponsibilTLy in a mattci' on which they had no opportunity for discussion, ana lor which they are possibly nob now thanking him. , He next tleals with the. question ol tho abolition of tho honorary staff, and gees on to state that at a conference of the Hospital Boards’ Association, a resolution was passed which •‘practically approved a scheme which has proved so successful at Timaru Hospital.” Ono hesitates to make such strong statements ! especially in connection with ono of Mr f’etts s calling, but one can only call Air Potts's statement a mis-statement of the truth with tho object of misleading the public. When Air Potts made his original statement along tlio same linos ho was corrected in a letter iiom tbs President of the Local Division ot I ho British Aledical Association. Air Potts accepted tho correction and stated that had he known the correct particulars lie would have used them as they would have suited Ins purposo. And yet, in the face of this, lie again deliberately makes use of his nist mis-statement, knowing it to be most misleading, and on the eve- of the election after tho correspondence columns, are closed. With tho question of tho rcducaon in tlio fees for tho maternity ward Mr Potto apparently has not much sympathy, while, at Oio same time, being iweparcd to spend' larger sums on far loss deserving objects. Has the fact that tho motion to reduce the foes was pronosed by tho one member of tho “Opposition” on the Board any thing to do with it 1 wonder!. Tho next item in his manifesto is interesting- Ho says “By personal advocacy at the Board’s meeting I assisted in the arrangements made with tho Council of the. Friendly Societies bv winch their members are treated at the Board’s institutions at half-rates.” Ye Clods, wliat next! On what grounds does Air Potto fondly imagine lie is empowered to make special reductions in the fees to any one section of the community. In tho first place I would correct Air Potts when he speaks of tlio Board’s institutions. r /hev are not the Board’s institutions at all; tliev arc the public's institutions or in oilier words tlio retenayers’. The Board are more I v elected from time to time to esrrv on the work of administration. Likewise the money handled bv the Board to also the nropc-t - "Mho ratepayers arid should be handled fairly, and not to the advantage of any one section of the cnmmiiniiv with the exception of the necessitous. Tf Mr Ports proposes to make a special concession in the case of the Friendly Societies whv not extend it. to include the Public Servants’ Association, ttie Accoiinte-ts’ Socictv, the Bankers Guild amJ in fact anv Societies there may be? Tbc.-* are all re term vers a”d therefore eligible. Tf. would be exactly on all fours with Mr Potts’s proposal were (tho Borough Council to open butchers’, bakers’, grocers’, shops etc., and then supnlv the Friendly Societies at half rates. To avo ; d the risk of undue length I will only briefly toucli on one more

item Mr Potts’s manifesto, viz. the dental clmio. Mr Potts omits to mention that wo are to have the privilege of paving for this, according to tne estimates, the sum of £2BO per annum of whioh they estimate to collect £IOO in fees. It is noteworthy that this sum or £9BO is not included in the statement of the totals under the heading “Tiinaru Hospital” in the statement of estimated expenditure 1925-261 In looking over the Board’s statements for tho period' 1928-24, 1924-25, 1925-20 (the latter ‘estimates”), it is interesting to note that while the receipts show a drop from £60,000 to £4b 000 the expenditure shows an increase from £46,000 to £48,000, also that the administration expenses show an increase from £715 to £ilOO or over 60 per cent, and the office expenses jump from £486 to £7OO or just under bO per cent. , . , Another interesting point is the tacu that Waimate Hospital, with an average of 40 occupied bed 3, has a total cost per week per bed of £3 4s Id. while Timaru with an average of 77* beds (where one would naturally expect a reduction owing to tho greater number) lias a total cost of £3 14s (kb This means in effect that it is costing us over 10s. per week per bed more than 'Waimate or, in other words, on a basis of 77 beds wo are paying over £2OOO a year more than the same number would cost Waimate 1 ' Mr Potts’s address of thanks after the election calls for a little comment. After returning thanks for his own election he goes on to congratulate .Mrs Raymond and while aiholutely ignoring Mrs Unwin 110 proceeds do express regret that an unsuccessful candidate was not elected. This was bardlv complimentary to Airs Unwin, nor did it show that spirit of impartiality one lias been usc-d to expect in a chairman of a local body. . The ratepayers have had enough put before them to show that thero is a decided need for a full inquiry into the internal affairs at the Hospital, and a pressing need for a thorough rc-or'bn-ition of this system now in vogue, aiul I think that from the few points I have mentioned abovo it is fairly evident that the. same applies to the administrative side. Av ith Alt Potts as a privato individual I have no concern, but in Mr Potts as chairman of tho ’Hospital Board I liavo no confidence. and, as it appears to mo, the whole’ question can be most aptly summed up in tho rather hackneyed lines with which I conclude and whicn I would commend to Air Potts’s notice, “You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all tho time, but you _ can’t fool all the people r.ll tlvo time.” I am, etc.. RATEPAYER. jjjtv 7* 1926. ’