SCANDALOUS WASTE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16037, 30 January 1920, Page 5

SCANDALOUS WASTE.

ROTORUA SOLDIERS’ SANITORIUM,

A matter which requires immediate invalidation by tho Government is, according to a Palmerston resident who has just returned from Kotorua, tho state of affairs existing there with regard to the returned soldiers’ hospital. In conversation with a Manawatu Times’ reporter, he said that the wholesale waste going on there in connection with the hospital buildings and the staff was common talk among the residents of the town. With regard to the buildings, provision is made for over 1000 patients, and the average number of urinates has never exceeded 200 at any time. A very large medical staff is employed to loog after these men. When it is realised that the average works out at about one doctor to every 14 patients, and that each of these officers receives a salary commensurate with the importance of his profession, the huge expenditure that the Government is being put to can readily be understood. Besides this there are two colonels in charge of the medical staff, each drawing a salary of <£l2oo a year with housing and messing allowance thrown in. The peculiar part of the whole thing is that buildings are still in the course of erection with a large number of men employed on them, and consequently a long pay-sheet to be faced at regular periods. ‘T don't believe,” said the gentleman in question, “that the present Cabinet can iwesibly bo aware of the state of things at present existing . there, or a stop would surely have been put to it years ago.”