THE HOSPITAL ESTIMATES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9094, 21 May 1908, Page 6

THE HOSPITAL ESTIMATES.

TRUSTEES FURTHER DISCUSS THE REDUCTION.

The Mastsrton Hospital Trustees again discussed briefly at their meeting yesterday the reduction of their estimates for the year by the District Hospital Board. The discussion followed on the reading of a letter from the secretary of the Board, which ran as follows:—"I have to state that unless a special meeting is convened for the purpose of dealing with your Trustees protest with regard to the disallowance of certain items in your requisition for the current year, there will not be any opportunity for the matter being dealt with until the meeting which is to be held on the first Wednesday in December next." Mr W. Fisher, in support of the Board's action submitted a list of the expenditures on the Masterton Hospital for several years past, which showed that the increase on this year's estimates over last year's was £1,200, which he considered a ridiculous rise. He also said the Board had been very dissatisfied with the grouping of the greater p irtion of the expenditure under the head of main hospital requirements, while the fever ward had been , passe! over. It was the different sources whence the revenue from the two branch°s was derived that caused the Board's objection. Mr R. Brown said the Trustees

ware not opposing the Board's action in the transfer of part of the estimates from general expenditure to the fever ward estimates, but it was the reduction of the sum total of the estimates that Trustees strongly objected to. Thd Chairman (Mr J. B. Keith) said that the only course open to thj Tr isr.oe-j mi K 'ht be to apply to the Supreme Court for a mandamus to compel the IJ.ianl to comply with the Trusteed demands if a request were made for the original proportion at the end of the first quarter. >

Mtissra Fisher and M.-T. Jackson thought th-) Board no doubt did not wi h their act,ion to be viewed in s jch a si.riuLH light. It was merely a Pteo t.'i'c ?.! t > impress the idea of a lit Jo in i ft.' fCi noni.v on the Truptecs. Mr I s.ier said that the Board had now given power to Hospitals under it* rule to have an overdraft up to .£:i()0, and this might ease the jjusitimi somewhat. Eventually the letter from the Board was "received."