HOSPITAL COMMISSION.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1921, Page 4

HOSPITAL COMMISSION.

FURTHER EVIDENCE.

By Telegraph —Press Association. Dunedin, April 27.

The Hospitals Commission resumed iti sittings this morning. Evidence was given by Mr. R. A. Rodgers, Tuapeka County, who thought the present system of levies and subsidies providing for maintenance was inequitable. The levies were made on wealth as disclosed by the valuation roll, when the rate-, payer might only be a tenant and only nominally the owner. Wealth could not be fairly estimated from the valuation rolls. The only way to attack the e real owner of wealth was through the channels of the land and income tax. He thought boards with base hospitals should receive greater consideration in subsidies than boards which depended on the special departments in bi.se hospitals in another district. The most equitable solution of the whole question of hospital administration was the nationalisation of the Public Health Department in all branches. He did not think nationalisation would affect adminisoration, and was satisfied there would be no trouble in getting qualified and experienced men and women only too willing to continue the work now done so freely and well. He favored a system of differential rating for contributing local bodies, so that they would bp levied pro rata according to the benefits received.