CANCER TREATMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 117, 20 May 1931, Page 11

CANCER TREATMENT.

SUCCESS IN SOME CASES. COMMITTEE'S REPORT. CIRCULATION AMONG DOCTORS. The annual report of the Cancer Consultation Committee, and its request for more radium, were considered by the Auckland Hospital Board yesterday. The committee asked that the report be circulated among doctors in the district. Mr. W. Wallace, chairman, said he did not think the doctors should be circularised, as that would result in the hospital being inundated with patients. The board could not afford to accommodate people who could not pay for treatment, as it was a costly process. Even when payment was guaranteed by the board in the patient's district, it was often difficult to get the money. Dr. Guuson said that the report was of a technical nature, and told Mr. Wallace that it dealt with the kinds of treatment that had been successful. In other cases, however, they had not been successful. He stated it as a definite fact that cancer had been cured in some cases. There were many eases of cancer in the province who were legitimate applicants for treatment. He did not think the board should cut down expense when cancer could be cured in certain forms. "We want these cases early, so that thev can be cured," lie said. Mr. Wallace said that only the four major boards in the Dominion were allowed to have radium, and it would not be humane if the board refused to admit sufferers.

It was decided tlikt the report be circulated among doctors in the province. The'committee, in its request for more radium, said that the whole of the radium at the hospital was in constant use, and there were many cases of patients being kept waiting owing to lack of radium. The request was sent to the finance and purchasing committee with power to act.