HOSPITAL SYSTEM

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 245, 17 October 1942, Page 4

HOSPITAL SYSTEM

PROTEST BY FARMERS. TAXATION LIMIT REACHED. A letter from the Marlborough Eospital Board dealing with hospital costs wes read at last night's meeting of the Blenheim branch of the Farmers Union. This said that the chairman's statement published in The Express set out the position and causes fully. Unfortunately, there v/as no prospect of any immediate reduction in costs; the tendency was rqther the other way. The full cost of dealing with soldier patients was now being borne by the Government. but there was a big increase in Social Security patients and the 6s per day allowed for them was, under present -conditions, quite inadequate. The writer suggested that the union should endeavour to have the Social Security payments to hospitals increased to cover expenses. The president (Mr J. B. Barnett) : We've had Social Security patients for some time; that doesn't altogether ex-plain the 34 per cent. rise this year. The fact is there is some very expensive plant at the hospital. The X-ray is the most up-to-date in -the Dominion. Mr S. W. Jordan : Until the farmers get together and decline to pay rates, we'll have increased costs. Mr H. E. Wratt: Hospital maintenance fails on sec-tions of poor people, while v/ealthy folks can go there and get treatment for nothing. Mr E. J. Ham : Ratepayers just outside the town boundary, who get the use of most of Blenheim's facilities, pay hardly any hospital rates. Mr H. H. Gifford: When a petition for merging with Blenheim went aroun dthat area, many people signed it. Then the same people signed the opposition petition and they're still out. On -the president's motion it was decided to ask the Dominion Executive of the Farmers' Union to take up the matter of increased Social Security -payments to Hospital Eoards with a view to easing the present heavy iburden on ratepayers. It v/as further decided to write to the Hospital Board informing them oi the course taken and adding that the limit of taxation had been reaehed and any further increases -would be strenuously resisted by the farming community. Before the subject was dropped Mr Harris voiced an objection to the phrase, "the limit of taxation had been reaehed." "It ought to be 'over-reached,' " he declared. — — V