GREYTOWN HOSPITAL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 1 July 1933, Page 5

GREYTOWN HOSPITAL.

(To the Editor)

Sir, —The lengths to which public men will sometimes go when hard pressed to escape from an. untenable position is strikingly illustrated in the discussion which took place at yesterday’s meeting of the Hospital Board, relative to the proposed, closing of the Greytown Hospital. The arguments of economy, centralisation and efficiency, advanced by the Board in justification of the proposal having been devashatingly demolished from the public platform by the speakers: of the South Wairarapa deputation, the Board, as a last resort, seeks to hide behind the old people of the Buchanan Home. Surely, Sir, the members of the Board must be 1 hard pushed to justify themselves to adopt such a pitiful subterfuge. •: The people of the South Wairarapa arc perfectly aware of the fact that for years past the Buchanan Home and the Greytown Hospital have run side-by-side without a hitch, and have not forgotten, the solemn undertaking made by the authorities that they should still continue to do so immediately the earthquake refugees returned tp ,/ Hawke’s It is quite evident that the members of the Hospital Board do.not yet realise that they are entirely failing to represent the districts m the South Wairarapa for which they were elected, or how high the tide of public opinion has against their action, in spite, of th®ban’imous votes passed at all the publiiJßeetings held, and the protests lodged by all sections of the communThe people of the South Wairarapa ha-ve now waited patiently for many months for the reinstatement of then hospital according to the agreement made when its doors were opened to the earthquake refugees, during the whole of which-time patients have been taken past the doors of their hospital, often in agony, and. to a great extent isolated from their friends and relations. Their patience is now exhausted, _ • - they are determined that such an intolerable state of affairs must cease, and that the hospital, which serves a P°P™J' tion of over ten thousand people, and lias been handed down as a legacy ol (the pioneers, shall continue the grea work for the sick and suffering it ha. been, carrying on for the past sixty years.—l am, etc., n Ti \ Y LOR. The Manse, Greytown, Ist July.