MAORIS AND HOSPITALS.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17268, 14 November 1929, Page 7

MAORIS AND HOSPITALS.

NON-PAYMENT OF FEES. SUGGESTIONS CONSIDERED. The Bay of Plenty Hospital Board, with headquarters at Whakatane, is troubled, like the Waikato Board, over the difficulty of collecting fees from Maori patients. The latter body today considered a proposal put forward by the Bay of Plenty chairman to the effect that an appeal should be made to the Maori Health Councils to urge upon patients their duty in the matter, and that, failing good results from this effort, the Government should be asked to pay the fees from the Maori Purposes Fund. The letter, which had the approval of the Bay of Plenty board, stated that, If it were still found impossible to get payment, the boards might be compelled to consider the question of admitting nonpaying patients when accommodation was limited. The Waikato board resolved that these proposals should be submitted to the Hospital Boards’ Association for consideration. It proceeded to discuss a suggestion put forward by Us own chairman, Mr. Campbell Johnstone, to the effect that the Government should earmark for hospital fees the payments it was making in compensation for ttie confiscation of Maori lands. The Government had consented to pay £SOOO a year on this account to the Maoris of each of three districts. Mr. J. J. Ryburn asked whether the compensation payments were being earmarked for any special purpose. He understood no payments were to be made to individual natives but that the money was to be used largely for education. The chairman said the money would go “to encourage extravagance among the natives.” The Government proposed to give them £15,000 in addition to grants already made to them. Mr. A. Livingstone suggested that the board should write to the Government asking how the Maori compensation funds were to be used. This course was agreed to on the motion of- the chairman and Mr. Ryburn, the latter again urging that part of the payments should be earmarked for the treatment of Indigent natives during sickness.