A FRANKLIN HOSPITAL.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 588, 30 November 1920, Page 3

A FRANKLIN HOSPITAL.

COUNTY CONTRIBUTIONS.

Several matters of general interest were discussed at a representative meeting at Waiuku last night.

The Mayor of Pukekohe (Mr. C. K. Lawrie) congratulated Waiuku on its cottage hospital, and Mr. Chalmers on his election to the Hospital Board. Replying, Mr. J. D. Chalmers (who is also secretary of the Waiuku Chamber of Commerce)' said he would always be equally attentive to the interests of all parts of the district. Mr. R. F. Webster (president of the Pukekohe Chamber of Commerce) said the establishment of a good, wellequipped hospital in Franklin was necessary The county contributed between £SOOO and £6OOO per year direct to the Hospital Board, and this, with the subsidy, amounted to about '.11,000. Now, the patients cost £l5O per year, but there were not sufficient patients from Franklin for anything like £II,OOO to be expended on them. Patients from the backblocks of the county could not be brought expeditiously over the rough roads, and often a sufferer died before the city was reached; a hospital in the county was required. He did not ask that the hospital be put in either Pukekohe or Waiuku, but let competent advisers say at what central place it should be. A cottage hospital was merely a temporary institution. Large numbers of ratepayers, many in the northern end of the Raglan County, could not get treatment or any equitable return for their contributions. Sir Frederick Lang recalled the days when there was no hospital in the Waikato, but the time was coming when there would be branch hospitals in all centres of districts. He thanked the hosts for the kindness shown to him. He knew that the Prime Minister would like to have been present in his district that night. (Applause.) ,