HOSPITAL POLICY

Hokitika Guardian, 22 December 1931, Page 5

HOSPITAL POLICY

CONFERENCE OPPOSED QUESTION OF EXPENDITURE. (By Telegraph —Per Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 21. Replying to the arguments in favour of a Conference of the Hospital Boards next February, which were advanced last week by Mr W. Wallace, the President of the Hospital Boards’ Association, Dr. Campbell Begg, a member of the Wellington Hospital Board, reiterated bis statement that an expendituie' of £6OO to £BOO on the conference was not warranted. ■■L'"- • Dr. Begg questioned the contrroution which the proposed conference could make to the problems of unemployment and distre s relief. He said that tiie various Hospital Boards were permitted to riend sixty-four voting delegates to the conference, while others without voting power coukl attend. At the conference in Palmerston North in 1929, tlie.e were fiftyseven Board members, thirty Board secretaries, eight medical superintendents and five officers of the Department of Health.

The total attendance was 101, and all expenses were paid by Hospital Boarde, or from Government funds. Local expenses were, presumably, met to some extent by the Hospital Board's Association, which, during the last financial ycai', secured for its activities <OB2-1 from Board funds, and £IOO as a Government grant, “The conference lasted three days, and all tho hotel and travelling expenses for the delegates were met from the public funds,” said Dr. Begg. “The conference proposed for Timaru next year will be similar in composition, although, possibly, there will be fewer delegates. The cost can hardly be less than £6OO or £700.”

Dr. Begg added that the Secretaries and Superintendents would probably confer on routine 'hospital matters, while the Board delegates would have fifty or sixty remits to consider, many of which would be of a 'minor nature. He declared: “It is doubtful if any complete national constructive propositions will b© sumbitted, and it is certain that if these involve the dissolution of some twenty five Boards, they will not be passed. Yet all authorities, including officers of the Health Department, realise that this step is one of the first essentials in the reform of the Hospital system., Some 0/ the remits would involve flip expenditure of more money if they were carried.” . ,

■The Stand'ifig’ Executive ’of Hie Hospital Boards’ Association included representatives of the main hospitals, Dr. Begg said, and this body was sufficiently representative and should be more effective as an advisory board than any conference, if" its members were prepared fo lake the onus of their decision. If tho Executive had failed to bring forward practical schemes for .the reduction of, expenditure, no conference would be likely, to do better. . , Dr. Begg added: “I hope that Mr Wallace will endeavour to get this conference cancelled and will use the ordinary mechanism of the Association to bring forward proposals on vital questions. The time -for conferences and commissions has passed, and if those who have the responsibility will not take drastic action on the information available, without -regard for political consequences, the Dominion has little chance of being saved from financial disaster, the threat of which becomes more ominous month by month. ,