The Waikato Times. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1877.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 722, 1 February 1877, Page 2

The Waikato Times. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Una wed by influence and unbribed by gain. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1877.

The present week has seen consummated at Ngaruawahia one of those retrogressive steps taken m the name of economy which we could scarcely have supposed any constitutional Government of the present time capable of undertaking. In July last the Ngaruawahia hospital was opened by the Government, a resident medical man appointed, and the necessary accommodation provided for the reception and treatment of patients. This had been done m response to the oft repeated application of the inhabitants of the Waikato district, many parts of which are miles and miles away from the residence of a medical man, and where accidents and cases of illness have frequently occurred, and sometimes ended fatally, m which the fatigues and delay of a removal to the Provincial Hospital m Auckland rendered that institution unavailable to the patients. The want of a local hospital was keenly felt, and after much agitation the late Sir Donald McLean, during his last visit to the district, saw for himself the reasonablenessof the request and put the institution with as little delay as possible into working order. Now, the Hospital has been suddenly closed, but not because it is not as much required as ever, for at the time of closing it there were five indoor and a number of outdoor patients. Nor during the short period, say from the middle of July to Friday last, since it has been opened, has the medical staff been idle, 1 for while there have always been some few indoor cases on the books, no less than two hundred find forty out door . patients have been attended to during a single month of that time, and this m a. district which has no other medical man than the hospital surgeon within ten or a dozen miles. That the number of indoor patients has not been even greater is due entirely to the restrictions to admission placed m the way of applicants by the Government, no one being received as a patient who was unwilling to sign a declaration that he or she was destitute. There may be numbers of persons unable to pay a heavy fee for a doctor's visit, summoned ten or twenty miles to attend them, who nevertheless could not and would not make any such declaration, but who are just the persons for whom the advantages and treatment of a hospital are intended, either free or at a reasonable cost. We pass over altogether the treatment of the medical officer m charge, whose long connection with the Militia and Volunteers, as senior medical officer, entitles him to a little more consideration after 14 years' service than sudden dismisal with a compensation of three months pay, and base our complaint of the present action of the Government on the very serious public loss and m convenience which the closing of the hospital will entail upon the district. Why have suddenly and without notice and without consulting the newly elected councils m the matter have closed the hospital ? Surely the Government having brought the institution into working order should at the least have carried it on a few months longer until arrangements

could have been made by which it would have been taken over by tli9 several county councils interested m its existence. Can, indeed, the Government say that it was not specially its duty to have so acted, seeing that m the case of one of the Waikato counties, Piako, it stands m the light of the executive of local affairs, while should the county Act be hung up m Waipa or Raglan it will do so m their case also? As it is, therefore, the Government cannot claim as an excuse that under the Counties Act the duties of maintaining hospitals falls upon the counties, and therefore its obligations have ceased, for m the case of Piako it stands m the light of a county council, and for aught it can tell may do so m the oase of other Waikato counties. But whether or no, it was the duty of a Government worthy of the name to have bridged the intervening administrative space and to have maintained existing institutions until steps for arranging the responsibility of administration m the future had been arranged.