THE Grey River Argus. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1869.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 611, 16 December 1869, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1869.

In the. coarse of a Btring of bitter and, so far as this district is. concerned, unjust complaints, against thje various districts for neglecting liberally to support the Hokitika Hospital, our Hokitika contemporary yesterday made some grave charges, for which there is no foundation, whatever, We sympathise with! the. members of the Hokitika Hospital Committee, when, they fiml that they have undertaken a most unthankful office, and that the task of. conducting such an. institution successfully and extracting money from unwilling pockets is nosinecure ; but why the.' whole of Weslland should send Jjheir d.on/ttions to the Hokitika Committee— for thjs is., really what our.contempprary's argument amounts to— we fail to see. We have.had some experience of, Hospital management here, for. since, the fir^t settlement of, the place the people of this district have maintained a local Hospital, and managed its affairs in. a very creditable, mfliuier-^ears, before the.rqsidents.in, Hokitika wore.compelled to contribute, towards the. maintenance of theirs. Under, these, circumstances one would have imagined that it was un-_ necessary for. the newly-fledged Hokitika Hospital Committee to send a deputation to GreymoujLh to teach, the Committee here their duty— the duty, of, paying for patients sent to Hokitika— and sonic people might even bo tempted to uso stronger language, but wo will not, as -it LaTtrcvident the Hokitika Committee are

laboring under some strange hallucination, as well as the writer of the following sen? tences : — "At Paroa the public almost absolutely refuse subscriptions., on the ground that tiiey contribute to the Greymouth Hospital. Whether they do so contribute, or whether the allegation is a mere excuse, we are not able to say. It is, however, certain that whether the residents in this district subscribe money or not, they send patients, and if all their pecuniary sympathy flnws to the Greymonth Hospital their patients should follow suit. " And again— r ' ? Therp are at present patients in the Hokitika Hospital from Paroa, but donations are refused from the above place on the ground that the district belongs to Greymouth. There cannot of course be any exception taken to Paroa placing itself undqr any banner that it chooses, but there certainly is ground for objecting to it accepting all the profit j and none of the responsibility of hospital [ affairs as far as Hokitika is concerned." Now, the real facts of the case, so far as we have ascertained them, are these: — A patient who wag admitted to the Hokitika Hospital said he came from Paroa, and, I consequently, according to the strange habit of the Committee there, a demand was made upon the Greymouth Hospital Committee for the amount of his mainte; nance. As the Greymouth Committee did not send th,e patient, and knew nothing whatever about him, this demand was very properly refused. The same demand was then made upon the Paroa Road Board, which met with the same answer for precisely similar reaspns, The Greymoi)th Committee have expressed themselves willing, at all times, to pay for the maintenance of all patients they .send to the Hokitika Hospital ; and even that is a stretch of liberality, for the County Hospital is bound to admit patients from every part, which the local Committees may consider it their duty to send, of course for good and sufficient reasons. Our neighbors seem to forget that privileges are granted to their Hospital for this very reason, which are not extended to other institutions. We refer to the payment by the County Council of the Surgeon-Super-intendent and other officers' salaries, in addition to the usual subsidy — simply on account of its being tho central Hospital for the County — but this has not yet been taken advantage of by the Greymouth Committee, although it was distinctly understood and stated in the County Council when the vote for the surgeon's salary was under consideration, that the privilege was granted in order to permit the district Hospitals to send difficult cases there. Instead of acting as our neighbors have done, the Oreymouth Committee have on all occasions admitted sufferers to their Hospital from Hokitika, or any other district, and have never made a demand for their maintenance. Only the other day a steamer from Hokitika landed a patient here ; he was at once taken to the Hospital and remains there still, without the Hokitika Committee being asked to contribute. It is a pity the Hokitika Committee do not act in the same spirit, and it is a much greater pity that the large population located in Hokitika, and as far north as the Teremakau, do not support what must be considered their Hospital. Certainly the residents in Paroa have no right to contribute towards the support of the Hokitika Hospital. Their duty is to expend all their liberality upon the district Hospital at Greymouth, which is always open to extend help and comfort to. all who may require it. We may mention, en, passant, that the difficulties of the Greymouth Hospital Committee are considerably augmented by the fact that the Westland Government subsidies are now three months' overdue, at the same time we have reason to believe that the monthly proportions are promptly paid to the Hospital at Hokjtikn. This ought not to be. A charitable institution, which is voluntarily managed by the resi- | dents, and carried on at a large expense, I ought to receive its subsidies promptly, I so as to avoid causing additional anxiety to, and casting unnecessary obstacles in the way of the Managing Committee. We believe it could be easily avoided if the County Chairman was anxious or willing to do his -duty, and to extend even-handed justice to what the Hokitika papers delight to s,tyl§ " the outlying districts."