HOSPITAL RATING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 March 1939, Page 7

HOSPITAL RATING

—* ATTITUDE OF COUNTIES ASSOCIATION. DEPUTATION TO MINISTER. A deputation from the Municipal Association of New Zealand and the New Zealand Counties’ Association is to wait on the Minister of Health, the Hon P. Fraser, tomorrow regarding hospital rating. A statement prepared by the Counties Association, to be presented to the Minister, states that owing to the problem becoming so acute last year, the association decided, as a matter of policy, that the whole basis of hospital rating should be reviewed as the result of the proposed social security legislation and that until the basis of hospital rating has been reviewed the Government be asked to increase the hospital subsidy to 2-1. The association bases its request for a review on the following: (a) Under existing farming conditions one of the cardinal canons of taxation, viz. ability to pay, has completely vanished in the case of the majority of rural ratepayers all over the Dominion. During the past three years the average amount paid in hospital rates per head of the population of New Zealand rose steeply from 17s 5d to 22s 9d. (b) The present incidence of hospital rates on rural ratepayers. According to the latest statistics 41 per cent of the Dominion’s population live in rural areas, whereaf these same areas have to provide nearly 53 per cent of the hospital levies (c) The repercussion of social security legislation upon the present system The association recognises that two oi three years must elapse before the full effect of social security can be ascertained and in the interval asks the Government to increase its subsidy to hospital boards to help to neutralise the growing administration costs, (d’ The effect of non-payment of hospital rates by natives on the general incidence of rating, in certain districts. The reasons for asking for an in-, creased subsidy are based on the following: (a)’ Increase in hospital administration costs; consequent upon the increase in patients, extra hospital accommodation and extra accommodation for the nursing staff have been found necessary; increase in staffs, with the resultant increase in wages and salaries; increase in cost of provisions and drugs; demand for better equipment both surgical and medical; (b) Renovations of some of our existing hospitals; (c) Increase in levies on count) councils.