The Chronicle LEVIN. MONDAY, MAY 29, 1916. ADMINISTRATION OF PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 29 May 1916, Page 2

The Chronicle LEVIN. MONDAY, MAY 29, 1916. ADMINISTRATION OF PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

The inability or disinclination of municipal bodies to 'hold their annual conference this year is regrettable. Chief in the reasons for regret is the impossibility of getting an authoritative utterance on tlie proposal i'or mationial'Zation of public hospitals. When the executive of the association met in A\ ellington last week an insufficient discussion of the proposal took place, after which the executive resolved that nationalisation of the public hospitals was undesirable. Several threadbare and insufficient arguments were brought forward against the proposal; a*so one little-usedi and equally unconvincing argument. ' It was in 'he form of a contention that the Government control of iN®w Zealand hospitals that existed up to the late 'eighties proved unsatisfactory to the public interefets; from which the executive ut the Municipal Association postulated that control by Government would be equally ineffective in these days. That! the hospital controi "was" unsafrisifiaetory tliirty or forty years ago seeme> to be a well-established! fact; but h->w that circumstance can appeal to any body of reasonable men as being sufficient reason for condemning the present proposal "for Government control is in enigima. Was the Government Hospital Department the only branch of the Government service that | unsatisfactory in those tar-away day*? j We have an idea that the Native De- j .partmewt (to quote one other) oame in the same datagory; yet the gentleman : who (last week) made the propoaa*. for "turning down" the hospital uat-| donalizaition proposal doubtless admits! that considerable improvement has | been made in departmental control ol | native affairs since the days. of tlie Parihaka affair. The Post .Office 'so far as we remember) always was oon- ; dluctcd with credit, but all mustt admit tlia-t within the last decade it service has been improved greatly. And we deduce trom the tacts we have stated j herein that the hospitals would have been better administered by the Government Department than they ware , ii. the 'eighties. The analogy 36 so . obvious that it needls no elaboration. Tlie municripal executive, in short, burked fair consideration of the problem that has arisen. It is this: th.it the Wellington Hospital Board seems determined to establish the Wei 1 1 lington Hospital as a thorough-

ly up-to-date institution for the bene-j fit of the whole of . New Zealand; end this conimendaiblo standard is be- ' ing achieved by means of heavy levies made upon the country districts such as Horowhenua. County and Lo?in Borough, whose are numerically powerless to dio more than protest. If the various country contributors to the Wellington Hospital Board do n't keep this matter permanently . before the authorities, The trouble not only will continue, but wi>l be.-ome accentuated. A yearly protest is like, an equihoxiai gale : it makes poople take notice but is soon forgotten. The local Objectors should nvi-Ke their protests persistently, and. by every merui6 in their power cause fflle authorities to take notice of the unjust incidences of the levies made by the AVellingtan 'Hospital Board.