HOSPITAL EXPENDITURE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3827, 4 August 1928, Page 2

HOSPITAL EXPENDITURE.

Amazement at actual and proposed hospital expenditure in New Zealand is expressed by the Direc-tor-General of Health (Dr. T. H. A. Valintine) in his annual report to Parliament yesterday. The Director-General visited the hospitals in almost every part of the Dominion, and says that unfortunately he brought on himself much criticism because lie ventured to comment on the extraordinary increase in hospital expenditure. He is appalled at our hospital expenditure, actual and proposed especially in certain districts, but he does not blame the Boards entirely for this. If the members of Hospital Boards could visit other countries, including Great Britain and the United States, they would come

back here pleased and proud of our hospitals and our institutions as a whole. *■ Dr. Valintine considers the time has certainly come when a halt should be called in hospital expenditure. DISCUSSION IN THE HOUSE. Aspects of hospital administration and rating were debated in the

House of Representatives yesterday on the presentation of the annual report of. the Health Department. Mr. M. J. Savage (Auckland West) said he was not one of those who thought we were spending too much in the interests of the people’s health so long as the money was well and economically spent. There was a tendency in such matters as the hospital system to shift their responsibilities to other shoulders, particularly in dealing with distress. There was a growing cost

borne by the hospitals in this matter. He thought this expenditure might as well be made a charge on (he whole of the taxpayers. There was room for an investigation of the whole of the hospital system in this direction. Mr. J. Linklater (Manawatu) expressed the opinion that the time had arrived when there should be a more equitable distribution of the burden on local bodies in connection with hospital administration. Mr. W. S. Glenn (Rangitikei) said

that the health of the Dominion was of the foremost importance. It should not be neglected, and he trusted that the pruning knife would not be applied to the Health Department. If the Labour Party moved that an extra half million pounds be voted for the purposes of the Health Department, he would vote with them.

Mr. J. G. Rollestou (Waitomo), referred to the increased anxiety that hospital boards were experien,cing owing to expenditure, which was increasing by leaps and bounds.

The country was paying too great a share of hospital management expenditure in comparison with that which the towms were paying. Mr. H. M. Campbell (Hawke’s

Bay) said that in some of the counties the hospital rate was about ten times that of the towns in the same hospital board district. The whole thing wanted looking into, as the difficulties the counties were up against in regard to finding money for roading were serious to the ratepayers concerned. It Avas not fair that things should run in such a lopsided manner as they Avere todaA r .

Sir John Luke (Wellington N.) said that any money spent in tuberculosis sanatoria was justified. The treatment provided enabled many young men and women, who would otherwise be placed on one side as having no chance of living to be given an opportunity of regaining their health and place in the community’. The report Avas talked out.