KUMARA HOSPITAL AFFAIRS.

Kumara Times, Issue 2573, 3 December 1884, Page 2

KUMARA HOSPITAL AFFAIRS.

[to the editor.] Sir —The disclosures made at the Hospital Committee meeting this evening, and otherwise during the last few days, bring the friends and subscribers of the institution face to face with move serious matters than to bandy words with such nonentities as “S. S.” We have now before us the fact that one of the ablest, if not the ablest and most skilled physician of the West Coast, has been dismissed,on the Aim- j siest of pretexts, viz., that of pointing ' out to a ticket-holder that he was not a fit subject for charitable aid ; also the fact that the Auditors refused to audit the half-yearly balance-sheet, on the ground that certain vouchers were not forthcoming on the part of the Committee ; the ominous fact that the subscription sheet containing the names of subscribers and the ‘■•ums subscribed being missing ; and last, but not least,

the natural result of all this—that the banker refuses to allow more overdraft to the committee. In addition to all this, there are strange mutterings of embezzlement of funds, which the Committee, while dismissing the doctor for conscientious discharge of duty, hush up in the quietest manner possible. In face of these facts the only thing that can possibly be done is for the subscribers to memorialise the Mayor to call a public meeting for the purpose of requesting certain members of the committee to resign, and to petition the Government, as the principal donors to the hospital, to send down commissioners to make a searching investigation into the whole affairs of the hospital. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the hospital management is rotten to the core. Poor Dr. Monckton, to be an honest man seems to be a dangerous thing in Kumara. But, dear old fellow, cheer up ! The man referred to by the Great Physician himself (Luke 10th ch. 30th verse), is not the only man in his progress through life who has fallen among thieves, “ which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him and departed leaving him half dead.” There are those vile enough to take from their fellows that which is more valuable than gold.—Yours truly,

George Hay. P.S.—The statement that a digger who.subscribes for a yearly ticket, and goes into the hospital suffering from an accident is charged £1 10s per week is simply false. Ticket-holders who are admitted into the hospital pay nothing. But the ticket game is only another abuse which needs investigation. How convenient under the circumstances to silence inquiry by dismissing the chief witness against wrong-doing.—G. H.