NEEDY HOSPITALS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 May 1926, Page 1

NEEDY HOSPITALS

POSITION IN SYDNEY. SYDNEY, May (5. The newspapers have been laying bare, in the hope of course that tlie matter will be taken up by the Government, the impecunious skate of practically the whole of the great public hospitals of Sydney. That these hospitals were not affluent was generally realised. The public, however, was somewhat shocked to learn that they are struggling in the slough <rf financial despond, and that in some cases they are in desperate financial straits. The exposure, of the position has revived in some quarters the question of the establishment of a Statecontrolled art union, on much the same lines as that in Queensland, in order to assist these great and worthy institutions. The financial position of the hospitals is something of which the State need not-by any means he proud. Take Sydney Hospital, in Macquarie street, which was the first hospital established in Australia, and which commenced to function not long after iho first white men set foot on shore. Among its records, it is said, are those of meetings held in the hospital to raise money for the widows and orpLms of soldiers who ioll at Waterloo and in the Crimea. To-day, it las a deficit of close on £138,000. Its position is said to be growing worse at the rate of £I2OO a month. The story of Sydney Hospital is practically the story of the whole of the big public hospitals in and around Sydney. Whether the Government will he bold enough, to turn n deaf ear to lhe criticisms which would inevitably arise, and assist the hospitals by means of a State lottery, or whether it will adopt some other means, as for instance the imposition of a direct tax, remains to he seen. Tt will, however, obviously have to do something, judging from the figures which have been published. Of these institutions that aro aided by organised voluntary effort, the Children’s Hospital appears to he the most fortunate. It has quite an army of young Indies working for it for the sheer love of the cause, mainly in big and wellappointed city cafes which have not cost the hospital anything, either to establish or to keep going, and which are crowded in the luncheon hours. These cafes have helped in a. big measure to keep the wolf from the door.