EPIDEMIC EXPENSES.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 January 1919, Page 3

EPIDEMIC EXPENSES.

CHARGES FOR. USE OF HAUA. When the matter of the expenses hi connection "with, the recent epidemic was before the Hospital Board yesterday, the committee set up to examine the accounts recommended that certain of the charges made should be referred back for adjustment In the course of a short discussion on the matter, Mr RMorgan referred to the charges made for the hire of halls at Waitara and expressed surprise that comment on the fact and a statement that Waitara was he onlv district that had charged for halls, had appeared in the press, seeing i hut the matters had been dealt with in .mittee. The Waitara Committee ■„ that it was unfair to them, it was evidently not true that no other district had charged for the hire of the ka!1? - ' Mr Hill: At that time it was. Other accounts have come in since then. The chairman said he did not think the committee or the Board was bound to have kept such a fact secret. Newspapers have a way of finding out these things. The Board was exceeding surprised to receive the account. The Waitara Committee had treated only their own people in the temporary hospitals, and the committee felt they could rot recommend payment of the account. The fact that the' matter had got into the papers and caused some feeling amongst the Waitara people showed that they evidently had some sensibility on account of their action. ' Mr Morgan, in explanation, said that the patients treated were hardly Waitara people. They were practically all Maoris.

The chairman: Waitara Maoris. Mr Morgan, cor.'Unuitvg, 'said there wit'.' members of only one or two Waitara families in the hospitals: the rest were Maoris from as far away as Ur-e----nui and Uruti. Keferrhig to what had been done by local residents, Mr. Morgan 'said a great deal of the disagreeable work of grave-digging had been done by the Rev?, Gavin and Hinton, and Mr H. R. Vaughan, and they had made no charge lie was not bolstering up the charge, but merely stating the factsThe ' chairman said the town people of Waitara had their own Health Committee, whose busings it was to make all arrangements for tho hire or U9e of halls for temporary hospitals. The Board had had no advice as to any arrangements for the use of haHs at Waitara. lie thought, out of courtesy alone, the Waitara Committee should have acquainted the Board with what had been done, but tbey had not heard a word from them.

Mr Morgan said he thought that it tho committee believed they were to get public schools for npf, but that of course was objected to by the doilor. The matter had "been placed in the hands of one of the members of the coaiinitttee who had arranged for the halls in the belief that the committee had power to commandeer them. The authorities of the halls had not even ' "ii consulted,

.Mr Sykes pointed out that if the halls had not been acquired the district would have been thrown right back on the department entirely

Mr Morgan said it was has opinion that the Wa!tun>. Committee considered the charges for the halls should be reduced.

Mr Sykes asked if it was not true that the Foresters had offered not to clinr«e for the use of their hall, provided the St. John's Vestry did uot make any chargeMr. Morgan said he thought that it was the opposite of that The chairman pointed cut that :f the Wiiitnra charges were endorsed theu_:.l! the other hriils used would have to be paid for Tt was since the Wailara accounts had been received that Hell Block and Okato had sent, in accounts.