LETTERS TO EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 117, 15 February 1928, Page 12

LETTERS TO EDITOR

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES’ PAYMENTS TO HOSPITAL BOARDS

Sir,—The valuable publicity given, by The Dominion to this subject has elicited two interesting replies from leading representatives of friendly societies. Air. AlcLaughlin, chairman of the Friendly Societies’ Hospital Associations of New Zealand, appears to resent this publicity, yet the issues involved are so important to other people besides the officials and members of friendly societies as fully to justify the widest publicity and call for the closest investigation by the Minister of Public Health, members of hospital boards and local contributing bodies, for there is no doubt the friendly societies’ hospital scheme is a clever method, of obtaining a State subsidy in an indirect ivay. Air. AlcLaughlin seeks to justify the scheme by stating: “We contribute (apart from special agreements) to the hospital finances direct by -way of rates or rents, and indirectly through the Consolidated Fund, from which hospital subsidies are granted.” This can also be said of most people in the country, for rates, rents, income tax, Customs duties, etc., are not paid by friendly society members only. But does the sharing' of taxation burdens entitle them to claim a direct return from hospitals? Surely this is a new doctrine of taxation under which a section of taxpayers make a claim for a direct benefit to themselves in return for taxation, which is usually regarded as being imposed for the common good. A little consideration will show that this argument is quite fallacious. The essence of the whole question is dint public money is used very largely to maintain our public hospitals, and those who oan pay for treatment and maintenance in these institutions are expected to pay, strict inquiry being made into the financial ability of each individual before the obligation to pay in full is removed. This is in accordance with section 70 of the Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Act, as follows: "The cost of relief granted by or at the expense of a hospital and charitable aid board to any person shall constitute a debt by that person to the board, and miy be recoverable by action in any Court of competent jurisdiction." •

Under the present system, then, an individual admitted to hospital might be paying rates direct, or paying income tax and in regular work, etc. I-Ie would certainly be expected to pay in full, but if he were a member of the friendly societies’ hospital fund would he not be entitled to admission to hospital, obtain treatment, be maintained, and then discharged without any inquiry because the friendly society has arranged to pay only 50 per cent, of the ordinary fees? Mr. AlcLaughlin refers to lodge members and dependants as numbering 300,000 national assets.. Insofar as their relations to public hospitals are concerned, are they not being converted into national “liabilities” if their proposals are adopted? We are further told that: "The hospital funds are no part of the general societies’ funds, but are an additional separate charge, which members levy themselves with, and are entirely governed by associations apart from lodges or their central bodies.” Al'r. Shrimpton also asserts that: “They (friendly societies) make no saving by members entering hospitals for treatment, as in the vast majority of lodges the medical men attached thereto receive a per capita allowance for every member on the roll—well, sick, in hospital, or own home; that the presentday capital value of friendly society accumulations have not been garnered for the purpose of the societies’ aggrandisement, but to meet present aud future liabilities.”

.Now, although there is a separate hospital tund and separate administration, it is difficult to see why the increasing number of. members entering public hospitals ror treatment does not indirectly effect a considerable saving to ordinary sick funds. If the services of the hospitals are to be employed instead of ordinary lodge medical and sick services, then in the long run these will be less drain on the sick fund. The cost of treating the sick members is legitimate expenditure by friendly societies, and one must ask why some of the large surplus from sick and funeral contributions (£182,595 in 1926, and £106,514 in 1925) cannot be diverted for this purpose ? Nobody objects to the societies building up large assets from the voluntary contributions of members, for whose benefit they are, and should be, expended, and one can feel a sense of satisfaction and pride that the societies in New Zealand are financially very strong, but is there any sound reason why a compulsory contribution should be exacted from ratepayers and taxpayers for this purpose? The burden of hospital maintenance is already very heavy. The average cost of each patient, adults and children, in our public hospitals, averages between 16s. and 17s. per day, yet the friendly societies, through their leading officials, are seeking to obtain this service from the hospital boards at a charge of 4s. 6d. per day for adults and 2s. 3d. for children.

I do not think friendly society members fully realise the above position, for it seems to me quite contrary to the original spirit of the friendly society movement. These societies have been described as "the means whereby the industrial classes of Great Britain have supplied .their economic needs for themselves, by themselves.” Is the movement in New Zealand in this direction, or is it in the direction oi State assistance, building up huge funds and losing the spirit of self-reli-ance? "What shall it profit?"—l am, 6 C ” OBSERVER, Wellington, February 13.