HEALTH CONTROL.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 67, 19 March 1919, Page 7

HEALTH CONTROL.

LOCAL AND DEPARTMENTAI.. MINISTER'S REPLY TO CRITICS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Tuesday. The Hon. G. W. Russell appeared before the Epidemic Commission to-day with a statement replying to Dr. Makgill. In the course of the statement

-Mr. Russell said the object in dealing with public health had been, as far as possible, to throw responsibilities upon the people themselves, through the local authorities. It was not the policy of this or any Government to take away the functions of city councils and other local bodies, but rather to enlarge those functions, and to employ the Public Health Department, as far as possible, as an advisory and supervising authority The idea of the Public Health Department assuming anything more than supervising authority and power of direction regarding sanitation and drainage would be too ridiculous for words. In some respects the Department had very real control. For example, under the Public Health Amendment Act, the Minister had power to order a local authority to instal a system of drainage, or if necessary to give authority to a local body for the installation of a system of drainage, without the necessity of taking a poll from the ratepayers. This was a very real safeguard, and was always exercised only upon the advice of the chief health officer. He took the strongest exception to the statements made regarding the Board of Health. The Board had been appointed exactly on lines of the Council of Education, as provided in the Education Act, 1914, and a further precedent was the Board of Agriculture, appointed under the Board of Agriculture Act, 1913. If members of the commission would compare the Council of Education and its powers with those placed upon the Public Health Board in clause 2 of the Public Health Amendment Act, 1918, they would see how closely the legislative connection with education had been followed.

Mr. Russell said there never had been any desire or intention on the part of the Minister to interfere with the scientific, experimental or technical sides of the Department except, as he stated in his evidence a. few days ago, the wish to make a line of demarkation as regards the heads of the Department and, district health officers between purely scientific and lay work. If the Department was in a backward state as regards organisation, efficiency and ability to meet public health conditions arising out of epidemics and such untoward events, the responsibility rested upon the heads of_ that Department to show the commission and the people of the country thai they had made recommendations which would have stopped leaks, that they had asked for money which had been refused, and, in fact, that they were not themselves responsible for the conditions against which they complained. To sneer at Ministers as politicians, and to say politics reflected popular wishes rather than scientific needs, was a very cheap and easy way for men who the Government had paid to advise with regard to public health to escape the responsibility that rested upon them. !' I repeat, without ■•hes'Station," he said', " that if at any time during the years I have held office, departmental heads had made and forwarded to mc recommendations with regard to the improvement of the service, alteration of law, or raising of salaries, their suggestions would have been brought before Cabinet, upon which would have rested the responsibility of inaction. No such recommendations have been made, and for the condition therefore of the Department to-day the responsibility rests not upon the Government tut upon departmental officers, who have apparently salved their consciences by preparing the statement which has been laid before the commission."