Manawatu Herald SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1921. COTTAGE HOSPITAL FOR FOXTON?

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2391, 11 February 1922, Page 2

Manawatu Herald SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1921. COTTAGE HOSPITAL FOR FOXTON?

THE suggestion has been made by several well-meaning people that Foxton should have a cottage hospital. There is nothing to prevent Foxton from having a cottage hospital, provided the local public is prepared to pay for its establishment and upkeep. “But we are rated for hospital maintenance,. and the institution is situated at Palmerston X.”, is objected. True, but let il be known that Foxton’s benefits from the district Hospital are tenfold in excess ~f Foxton’s levy— I■> say nothing of reiicf' payments. Within an hour’s run by motor car from Foxton is a hospital recognised as the best equipped and most skilfully administered for the treatment of suffering humanity outside the four centres. In order to accomplish this, the whole hospital district (hacked by Government subsidy) has footed the bill. In the circumstances no reasonable person would expect the Board, at the expense of the whole district, to establish and maintain a cottage hospital locally. The door of the district Hospital, with all its modern equipment and skilled treatment, is open to Foxton residents at the ridiculously low cost of six shillings per dav for those who can pay, and free to the indigent, a free clinic to children of school ago lor the treatment of nose and throat troubles, free advice to expectant mothers, one of the best equipped X-ray departments in the Dominion, and bacteriological laboratory. Diseases arc quickly and correctly diagnosed, and “operations of exploration” by surgeons are tilings of the past. People who suggest a cottage hospital are not acting in the interests of suffering humanity, and further, the local public would not shoulder such a financial burden. Foxton is well served, and has much to he thankful for in its access to the district Hospital.