A WATERED BILL
The Hospitals Bill introduced in the House of Representatives on Thursday makes no pretence at giving effect to the recommendations of the National Expenditure Commission for_ hospital reorganisation. The Commission recommended the establishment of a Board of Hospitals with wide powers to carry out, a reorganisation scheme, to amalgamate districts, close hospitals where such/were not required, watch administration and management, and generally bring about unity and uniformity. The Government's Bill does none of these things. , It merely provides for the appointment of.a Commission, either a Magistrate alone or a Magistrate and two' assessors, to report whether two or more contiguous hospital districts should be reconstituted, or whether any hospital institution shofuld be . closed. No body or person is charged with responsibility for initiating the investigations, nor for seeing that, if and when any investigations are made, the recommendations are carried out. . :
It appears .to us til at this is the most transparent' evasion of the National Expenditure Commission's recommendation. . It may be followed up, or it may not be. It will probably remain on the Statute Book and be cited as evidence that the Government has provided machinery for amalgamation and reduction of the number of districts^ but, ." as no amalgamation . has re-, suited, there can be no real need for it. The Minister of Health, in ex-: plaining the. Bill, said that the : machinery was "the same which had ■worked excellently; in the case of municipalities and counties." If it has, worked "excellently" we. are not aware of it. Probably the parochi-ally-minded councils consider it excellent' because it does not work at all. " Certainly it has not brought about that comprehensive reorganisation of local government which even' the Government has been .compelled to admit is needed. The Hospitals Amendment Bill will probably, work "excellently" in the same way, leaving the waste of the present system to continue. It is a revelation of the power of parochialism that, when dangerous expedients are being advocated to relieve the farmer, this obvious administrative waste must continue unchecked. ~
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 124, 22 November 1932, Page 6
Word Count
338A WATERED BILL Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 124, 22 November 1932, Page 6
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