HOSPITALEXPENDITURE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2756, 27 April 1916, Page 9

HOSPITALEXPENDITURE

. # RUSHING IT UP CITY COUNCIL HAS NO CHECK (By a Ratepayer.) Ratepayers must be prepared to face another risa in tho hospital and charitable aid rate, owing to a heavy increase in the levies that are beuig demanded from Wellington City anaVjotlier contributing bodies which keo» tho Wellington Hospital and Charitable Aid Board supplied with funds throughout the year. i'Jie total amount that has beea demanded from the various bodies amounts to £28,775, of which amount Wellington City has to find £18,272, and has to do it through the medium of tho City Council, which body has 210 direct representation on the board, and has not the power _ to question the amount, if it wero twice as much.. Therein lies an anomaly. Whilst the board gets its money.from the ratepayers through tho medium of the City Corporation, that body cannot question its finance policy. Its own members can do so, and, 111 6ome instances, did so pretty sharply at the last meeting of the board. The manner in whioh Hospital expenditure has piled up, chiefly in the past f ew_ years, is astounding, yet in that period the' institution lias never been so liberally endowed, the public (with the Government subsidy) having paid for the Victoria Home and Children's Hospital, and the Macarthy Trustees have given the board the monoy wherewith to purchase and fit up a convalescent home for children on tho hills at Belmont. , '

A glance at the table helow will show that in tho brief period of six years the expenditure on hospital and charitable aid work.in Wellington has more than doubled in the last six years. Tho figures are as under: — Rate on £ annual value. 1916 ..... 18,272" — „ 1915 15,72,0 31-sd. * 1914 13,027 22-3 d. 1913 .;... ,13,623 3d. 1912 10,078 2jd. 1911 8,943 2J<l. . 1910 8,782 2jd. No rate has been placed opposite tho current year, as nono could be struck until the Hospital Board's levy was received, but there is little doubt that an increased rate will have to be struck to make up the extra £2552 required by tho board.

Such au increase must be felt by the landlord, who will doubtless pass it on, and so the rents are pushed up by forces over which there is no control.

But this is hardly the sum total oj the- burden in' view. Consequent upon the opposition to using the' unoccupied wards in the' Children's Hospital, tho board now proposes to erect an ophpthalmic ward to cost in round figures about £10,000, and at.Hie last meeting of tho board it was proposed that the money should be borrowed for the work, so that as far as the increase in hospital expenditure is ooncerned the ond is not yet.