NEW OBSTETRICS HOSPITAL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19806, 23 May 1934, Page 4

NEW OBSTETRICS HOSPITAL

MINISTER GOES BACK ON OFFER DUNEDIN COMMENT By Telegraph—Press Association DUNEDIN, May 22. "The position now reached is most disheartening and unsatisfactory for those who have worked so hard toward the attaining of a new obstetrics hospital,” said the chairman of the Otago Hospital Board (Mr W. E. S. Knight) yesterday, when asked to comment on the latest communication from the Minister of Health (the Hon. J. A. Young). “The Government’s latest offer is nothing but a threat that St. Helens Hospital will be closed in three months unless we agree to the proposals.” Mr Knight said that he had very grave doubts whether the board would agree to the proposals submitted by the Minister, and that the position that would then arise was terrible to contemplate. He himself would never agree to such proposals as those put forward by the Government. The Hospital Board had told the Government that it would accept £20.000 and the St. Helens property, and that final offer had now been rejected by the Government, whose final offer was £IO,OOO. “I would like to point out for the fiftieth time that a definite offer was made by the Government of £50,000, for the purchase of land, the erection of buildings, and the provision of equipment for an obstetric hospital in Dunedin,” said Mr Knight, “and, further, that the department agreed to provide £2OOO a year for five years toward the cost of maintenance of the hospital, subject to review at the end of that period.” The present position, Mr Knight added, was that the Government was offering a grant of £IO,OOO and a subsidy on levies (at £ for £) of £4750, a total of £14,750, as against the original offer of £50,000. He would let the figures speak for themselves. Dr. Doris Gordon, of Stratford, at present here, commenting on the Government’s refusal of the Hospital Board proposals for a new obstetrics hospital, said the Minister's ultimatum to close the St. Helens Hospital unless the Board took it over, savoured of shock tactics, but it might serve a useful purpose in bringing the controversy to a crisis. In its refusal to take over St. Helens the Board had the support of the Obstetrical Society, and women welfare interests throughout the Dominion. The building was old, and could never be made suitable for the headquarters of obstetrical training. It was a fitting commentary on the situation, said Dr. Gordon, that overseas visitors who are shown over the medical school, and are impressed with the Dominion’s educational facilities, are seldom shown either of the obstetrical teaching hospitals, for fear that their good impressions would be shattered.

MR YOUNG IN REPLY.

WELLINGTON. May 2z. The statements made by the chair-* man of the Otago Hospital Board, Mr W. E. D. Knight, about the erection of the 'new obstetrics hospital were replied to by the Minister of Health (Hon. J. A. Young) to-day. The Minister said that had the hospital board’s counter-offer, spoken of by the chairman, been accepted by the Government, it wrould have resolved 4tself into the board receiving a £20,000 free grant from the Government, £3OOO from the Unemployment Board, £6OOO from the Dunedin Savings Bank. £ISOO estimated from the sale :,f the Batchelor Maternity Hospital and £ISOO estimated from the sale of St. Helens Hospital, a total of £32,000. to cover a proposed expenditure of £30,000, thus leaving the Otago Hospital Board a profit of at least £2,000 and involving that body in no expense whatever.