DEPARTMENT IS NOT HELPFUL IN BRINGING HEALTH EXPERTS HERE

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 November 1949, Page 5

DEPARTMENT IS NOT HELPFUL IN BRINGING HEALTH EXPERTS HERE

DUNEDIN, Last Night (PA).— “M'y friend the Minister of Health says my statement that the Health Department refused to pay travelling expenses of a tuberculosis officer appointed to Otago is untrue,” said Dr. A. S. Moody, chairman of the Otago Hospital Board. Mr. P. G. Connolly, M.P., has stated this from the public platform—in short, Miss Howard and Mr. Connolly say I am lying. “The letter sent, my board on Miss Howard’s instructions will prove who is saying the untruth. This letter definitely stated that the travelling expenses of this medical officer cannot be approved. It was only after the Hospital Board protested in the press that Miss Howard changed her opinion.”

Mr. Moody said the Health Department’s failure to pay salaries competitive with those in the United Kingdom and to meet travelling expenses of hospital specialists appointed from abroad, was making a hospital board’s task extremely difficult He desired to give publicity to the present controversy with the Minister not because she called him a liar, but because an important principle was involved. Unless the department. adopted a more realistic policy New Zealand would be deprived of highly qualified medical experts to staff hospitals.