“TAKE A PULL”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 343, 2 May 1928, Page 7

“TAKE A PULL”

ADVICE TO HOSPITALS DIRECTOR-GENERAL’S ADVICE ON SPENDING Uneasy with the problems of teaching hospital boards economy is the head of the Director-General of Hospitals, Dr. T. H. Valintine. Yesterday he earnestly advised the Auckland Board to “take a pull.” “I have been going round the country a great deal lately,” he told the board, “and the Director-General has become exceedingly unpopular in his efforts at economy. I have tried to limit expenditure through the country and I have been moderately successful. One and all of the hospitals want more expenditure.” He mentioned that the expenditure of the Auckland Board last year had amounted to more than all of the hospitals in 1910, and he said that members might appreciate his alarm. Compared with the hospitals of other lands, New Zealand’s institutions were very good indeed, considering the youth of the country. The time had come to look over the expenditure.

“Less than a year ago the country was really hard up against it,” he continued, “and I put it to you as practical men, can we afford to go on as we are going?”

A great amount of money was being expended in consumptive sanatoria in the South Island, which had one half of the population of the North. The South had double the sanatoria accommodation of the North already and yet demands for admission were increasing. The Dominion had the lowest rate of consumption (except for South Africa) in the world and yet it had the highest sanatoria rate per 1,000 of any country. At Pukeroa and Otaki sanatoria there were 80 vacant beds.

“We have been going on expending,” he said, “and now we have got to take a pull.”