HEALTH REFORM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 49, 27 February 1935, Page 9

HEALTH REFORM.

IDEAS ADVANCED.

"SEX" FILMS CONDEMNED

INSURANCE PLAN FAVOURED

(By Telegraph.—Tress Association.)

TIMARU, this day

Ideas for health reform in the Dominion were advanced by Dr. H. D. Robertson, of Wanganui, when speaking at the Rotary Conference to-day. The Dominion, he said, was fortunate in being so well served medically, the Health Department being very efficient and there being excellent hospitals and Plunkct Societies.

One of the problems of the age, declared Dr. Robertson, was tho spread of venereal disease, but how far it had spread was difficult to ascertain, as it was not notifiable, like other contagious diseases. After quoting the findings of tho Australian Medical Congress Dr. Robertson referred to the results of the commission of inquiry into the value of the Pluiiket Society's pre-natal and post-natal care of mothers and children, and urged Rotarians to interest themselves in the society's work. "I am in hearty agreement with the commission, wiien it dwells at length on the way tho young are allowed to go to pictures, as very few films are suitable for the'f.icile minds of the adolescent. Films contribute to precocious sexuality and to weakening the powers of inhibition and self-control in other directions," he said. Dr. Robertson quoted cases illustrating the cost to the taxpayer for the maintenance of families of * feeble-minded people, and declared that these were causing grave concern to hospital boards and welfare officers. He then referred briefly to the seventeen recommendations of the commission and added: "It is a great problem and apt to increase as the years progress." The speaker expressed the opinion that a national insurance health scheme for New Zealand, based on British medical service, would become an established fact before many parliaments had run their course. He referred to the national scheme advocated by the Hospital Boards' Association, and explained provisions which had been in force in Britain since 1911, which applied to all persons between the ages of sixteen and sixty employed in manual labour, and all other persons whose waces or salaries did not exceed £250 a Vcar. He said medical benefits under the National Insurance Act wen; deficient in certain respects, inasmuch as there was no provision for hospital treatment, for consultation in obscure cases, for cases requiring specialist attention, for pathological ntid phyeical aids, and for X-ray diagnosis of disease. He was convinced that a similar scheme, with the weakness eliminated, would be established in New Zealand before long.