FIVE MONTHS MORE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 222, 18 September 1940, Page 6

FIVE MONTHS MORE.

According to the chairman of the Hospital Board, Mr. Allan J. Moody,! the Health' Department as long agoj as May 29 appeared to be treating the erection of a military hospital in Auckland as a matter of urgency. At the Department's request the decision was quickly made in Auckland to make a site on the Domain available for the purpose. Yesterday-—three and a half months later—the Minister of Health and prominent officials of the Department were in Auckland. It would be agreeable .to be able to record that they had arrived to open the hospital, for the task of building a military hospital in three months should not be beyond the powers of a Government which pnt up the Social Security buildings in five weeks. But, failing completion, it would be mildly satisfactory if the purpose of the officials' visit had been to mark the beginning of the building and of the Minister to lay the foundation stone. But, no, the purpose of the visit was to discuss the question with the Hospital Board, and to inform it that the Army Department and the Health Department propose to saddle it with their responsibility for the treatment of wounded soldiers. Under the financial arrangement proposed the local bodies and the ratepayers of Auckland are likely to be called on to pay part of the extra cost. This question of financial responsibility can be thrashed out at leisure—but what of the hospital itself? The Director-General of Health speaks of its completion within five months — that is, about eighteen months after the beginning of a war for which all Government Departments were said to be fully prepared. Who is responsible for this dilatory execution of plans —if there were plans covering the treatment of wounded soldiers—is not clear, and it need not be assumed that the responsibility is all the Health Department's; but the i War Cabinet should be made fully j aware that no excuses will avail it if within the next five months wounded soldiers return from abroad and no proper accommodation can be found for them, except by turning patients out of the Public Hospital.