HOSPITAL ACCOUNTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 317, 17 June 1915, Page 6

HOSPITAL ACCOUNTS.

NEW SYSTEM CONDEMNED. SOME STRAIGHT TALK. The new system of book-keeping that the Hospital Department is endeavoring to force on hospital boards is far from finding general favor, and at the meeting of the Taranaki Hospital Board yesterday the matter came in for trenchant criticism. It was stated that, while the Act came into force in 1913, the regulations were not gazetted until March -jf this year. The Hospital Board had therefore made up its accounts on the old system. The Audit Department, however, considers that the regulations should be retrospective and that to comply with tlio Act the balance-sheet should be made up under the new system. This, the chairman says, is almost impossible, and will mean that the audit will cost almost treble what it usually does. The new system was of no special use to the Board. It meant a large increase in the cost of clerical work and would mean a' vast increase in Departmental Statements, which would be of no use except to provide some person in Wellington with employment compiling statistics, and he asked who read statistics. The new system gave no clearer indication aa to how the money was spent or to what use it was nut. The secretary, Mr, C. M. Lepper, thought the proposed system was no use to "(Jod, man, dog or devil." The person who first suggested it was not in the Audit Department, but in the Hospital Department. He did not deserve the Victoria Cross, nor even the Iron Crops. The system in vogue had served the purpose admirably for the past twentyfive years. The chairman said that the Hospital Board had been circularised on the mat- ] ter and. the majority objected to the j proposed change. The whole system had been turned down at a conference of Hospital Boards. It looked to him :is though it was a step towards the nationalisation of all departments. They would then sit merely as a committee. This would be regrettable; Hospital Boards were different to other local bodies. They were administered from humanitarian considerations rather than from any feelings of aggrandisement or personal advantage. He thought it would be futile to protest, as the powers that be would insist. It was finally resolved on the motion of Messrs McAlhini and Brown that. in ih" o'linion of this board, the method of keeping the board's nccunt as req'li'Til by the Audit Deinn-f-nent was I contrary to the orrnwed wij-h of over | 7."i per cent, of the hospital hoards of the ! Dominion, bt'i">,' oompli'- 1 ' -nd expen- j sive. Mmsnvir;i 'is co< ' Me extra ■ elerinl iissh-f/UHT won]'' ' • --quired without in ""■■ wiv gi- ' -v satis;'.i.'tory rrsn" ■■, than ! - ,h,. |. ,st.