IRISH HOSPITALS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 December 1933, Page 6

IRISH HOSPITALS

FUNDS SHORTAGE ALLEGED

VOLUNTARY AID REDUCED

LONDON, December 11

• A correspondent of the Times states that protests are being made by certain hospitals in the Irish Free State that they were better off before the introduction of the Irish sweepstakes than they are to-day. In the case of the Cork South Infirmary it is stated that for the past two years, it, like the “other hospitals, has got nothing from the sweepstake funds, as the Government has held up the money. Meantime voluntary contributions have "fallen off until there is little coming in.

The position was discussed at a meeting Of the committee of the infirmary, when the treasurer said that they owed their hankers £3249, The position at the end of the year would be impossible, as they then would be £SOOU in debt.

Mr Greene asked' if there was any prospect of the infirmary getting anything frbm the sweepstake funds. Mr Desmond said that he had interviewed the Minister concerned with the sweepstake funds, and the reply he received was that it would be a long time before they got any money out. 'The chairman, Canon Murphy, said that the most .pressing need was a capital sum to compensate for the loss of subscriptions. The treasurer said that in the old days they had ■6O non-paying patients who each cost the hospital £IOO a year. The number of non-paying patients had now increased ,to .120, and a bigger staff was .required.. : Mr Gamble said that the present inclination was for people to enter the hospital nvith'out paying, as they be lieved that the hospitals had plenty of money. 1