HOSPITAL MAINTENANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 May 1920, Page 2

HOSPITAL MAINTENANCE.

A QUESTION OF POLICY. LOCAL RATES OR CONSOLIDATED FUND? A brief message appeared in the Daily News regarding the statement made by the Hon- C. J. Parr (the new Minister Iter, Health) on the important question of* hospital and charitable aid maintenj ance. It is a question in which Taranaki local bodies are particularly interested at the present time, by reason of the ever-iniyeasing burden. The opinion, even if it were not a pronouncement of the Hon. Mr. Parr, was expressed by the Minister when replying to, the congratulations of Mr. M. J. Savage, MP., and Mr. W. Wallace, chairman of the Auckland Hospital and Charitable' Aid Board. NO LOCAL TAXATION. Mr. Parr said he had received numerous suggestions Tihat the whole cost of hospitals and charitable aid Bhould be paid out of the Consolidated Fund. The first essential in connection with the administration of the institutions where unfortunate people were tended was efficiency. Whether the State could handle matters better than the present system of contributions from local bodies was a large question. As soon as he could get the burden of education—his other portfolio—a little easier he proposed to give the matter of hospital administration careful and impartial consideration. He confessed that hospital board work was new to himj In considering the matter of hospitals and their administration the Minister must do his best for the people. A WARNING NOTE. A matter which would have to "be considered, and it might weigh with the Finance Minister, was that iihe Dominion might be approaching a time of a little stringency—-he would not flay more than that. The question would have to be considered in any State system of control of the hospitals, that was to say, of the State providing thtf whole of the finance, because even if it did there might possibly be still some form of local control. The boards collected close on £500,000 a year from the local ratepayers, and any scheme for the Government meeting the whole cost of the hospitals and similar institutions would have to provide for the raising of that half million of money out of the Consolidated Fund. A member:' It would be a mistakeThe Minister said he simply called attention to the fact that the matter was a practical issue of importance that he had to face. It could be quite understood that it was "not all beer and skittles" being Minister for Public Health. Mr. Parr added that, while he must give fuU weight to the claims of the various institutions in the Dominion, he would always look towards the hospital of his own town with kindly sympathy and interest.