COLLECTING HOSPITAL FEES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3072, 17 December 1908, Page 4

COLLECTING HOSPITAL FEES.

The matter of the collecting of fees due by patients to the Masterton Hospital has been a recurring topic of discussion at the meetings of the Trustees for a year past. The matter was again touched upon yesterday, when the Secretary explained a newspaper reference to the fact that a distress warrant had been issued against a person who had defaulted in the matter of fees, and who had confessed judgment at the Court. The Secretary stated that repeated requests by accounts and notices had been entirely ignored by the person in question, and the latter had treated the whole matter as if it was of no consequence, until the last extreme was taken. Then the defaulter did not even come to tiie proper quarter and ask for consideration, but endeavoured to act in an unconstitutional way. Equiries by a trustee went to show that the person mentioned was in receipt of £3 per week, and had constant work, with no broken time. The Trustees approved of the Secretary's action in the matter, they considering that the defaulter had himself only to blame, in ignoring the requests of the Trustees, extending over many months. The debt had been owing for some two years. Other cases set nut before the Trustees showed that it was quite a common matter for persons long-standing accounts to treat with utter disregard reasonable requests for settlement of their

amounts due to the Hospital, and the Trustees were unanimous t that in such cases the setting in motion of the law for recovery of the fees owing was a justifiable course.