The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1918. HOSPITAL ACCOUNTS.

Taihape Daily Times, 30 April 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1918. HOSPITAL ACCOUNTS.

(With which is Incorporated The laihape Post and News).

There is somthing rather paradoxical About the reasoning and the actions of the Wanganui Hospital and Charitable Aid Board. At last meeting it was stated, and not taken exception to, that it was a mistake to have placed a hospital at Taihape, while at the same time the Board had involved itself in an expenditure of over two thousand pounds in adding to that which it was a mistake to have erected. 'We say the men who argue in this fashion and expect people to regard them seriously have not that high class moral intelligence that is essential to the positions they hold. Our attention has been drawn to the hospital question by the unfortunate accident which befel Mr. P. J. McCann, last Thursday. We can imagine what would have happened had there been no hospital nearer than Wanganui; but, then, there are some members of the Board who appear to be guided by that quality in human nature which in their eyes and estimations renders it a mistake to build hospitals anywhere in the North Island excepting at Wanganui. In fact there appears to be prevalent a degree of kinked intelligence which does not realise that Wanganui is not the hub of the universe. Instead of helping forward the progress of their district they it a laughing stock. We have To tnank the Minister of Public Health for a copy of the statutory statement of accounts of each hospital in New Zealand, and although it comes at a time when the financial year is at an end, it is the first opportunity we have been given to study our hospital’s finance and conduct generally. It is certainly pleasing to note that a new departure has been made of .publishing the accounts in proper balance sheet form. The In-spector-General of Hospitals says there has been a good deal of veiled hostility and passive resistance to this necessary change in accountancy; it has not emanated entirely from the Boards, who, hardly without exception, have done their best to conform to the requirements of the Department. The new departure is certainly a great advance on the old method of giving just the mere statement of receipts and expenditure; but, in addition to the new statutory requirements, wo contend that each contributing body is entitled to have a - much more detailed statement, and we cannot understand why there should be the assinine objection to furnishing such a statement. Local bodies in this far-removed district are compelled by the Board to pay about 10s 4d per £IOOO, capital rateable value, and we are well entitled to. ask what the district gets in return over and above the services rendered by the Taihape hospital. The rateable value of the Rangitik’ei County is over six millions, and it is only the lower end of the county, around Marton, that can get any real benefit from Wanganui. It is the Taihape hospital that serves the greater part of this country, and also the Waimarino county and yet, members of the Board state that it was a mistake to put a hospital in this neighbourhood. The official statement informs us that there are eleven beds in the Taihape hospital, and, strange to say that there are 11.5 beds occupied every day in the year. If the hospital geniuses .at Wanganui were allowed to follow up the doctrine they preach we might find that out of 11 beds we should have 22 occupied each day of the year. Wo notice that the cost per bed is higher at Taihape than at Wanganui, and that has led us to wonder whether the £l6 a time joyrides are debited against the eleven Taihape beds. What we urge is that the Board should, without compulsion, furnish at least once a year an understandable, detailed statement of its expenditure such as all other local bodies issue. Contributing bodies have a right to know where their money goes to, but it seems that so long as the majority of the members of the Board are not dependent for their seats upon those bodies that contribute the most, there will continue to be displayed what the Inspector-Gen-eral of Hospitals terms a good deal of veiled hostility and passive resistance to furnishing what every contributor must admit is necessary information. This state of hospital conditions will 0 , en.ually find its own cure as the needs of this local district become more pressing, it has already been shown that hospitals* could be estab-

llshed at Marton and Eaetihi of tbe same capacity : ag that* at Taihape, and that they could be maintained at a huge saving on what contributing -bodies in-, this district are now made to pay and which .is : seemingly being used to build up a huge establishment in Wanganui, that will to some extent become a white elephant when outlying district finance becomes such that closer shepherding is necessary, and local hospital demands become greater. The published report of the last Board meeting does not increase public confidence in the institution, only in so far that Mr. Lethbridge was elected chairman. He, of course, cannot now interfere with the past year’s expenditure, nor the increased demand made upon ratepayers, but he will undoubtedly exercise an inquiring supervision on future proposals to expend huge sums at Wanganui.