The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1937. "WHY NOT PREVENTED?"

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1937, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1937. "WHY NOT PREVENTED?"

T&r the cvute that lacks assistance, For the icrong that reeds resist a-nct, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

It is "n" o: the paradoxes of the medical 1 :L;.i it trie- to stop the very thin-; !jv which r. makes it- living, ami the more' .-:icc( —i'';l it is in it- efforts the more pleased: i; Th<* public :- inclined to take tinattitude lor granted. without reflecting th»it ( in it there i- implied a standard of prolf—ioual; iu«-t that- i- of priceless value to thei community. It aiso accepts with little thought-, the fact that, partly through the efforts of the: medical researchers, seconded by the work of | the practitioners, some diseases formerly! common and deadly have been virtually abolished, or so controlled that relatively few people now die of them. Some of these, such as plaene, cholera, typhus and smallpox, have caused little or no concern in the Dominion, which was protected from them not only by its isolation, but by the growth of knowledge of methods of combating them. But even in New Zealand, as the Minister of Health -pointed out this week at. the B.M.A. C onference, the death rate irom typhoid fever has been reduced since 3Si5 from 9.00 per 10,000 to 0.07, and that from tuberculosis [from 15.G4 to 3.SS. He might have mentioned other instances, notably the wonderful reduction in the death rate of infants, which would |have been of even greater importance had the mirth rate not been failing steadily the while.

And yet, despite the achievements of medical research, and the application of its discoveries,- in a country with a healthy climate and a population, universally schooled, if not educated, sickness and disease, including preventable disease, continue to play a part in the lives of the people that must seem abnormally great. The expenditure on the public health services of various kinds, the constant demand for the multiplication of such services, the number of people qualifying for invalidity pensions, and the determination of the Government to institute a national health insurance scheme are all indicative of the gap which exists between what we are told by medical specialists is possible in the prevention and cure of disease and what in practice is achieved. "If preventable, why not prevented?" the late King Edward VII. asked, when as Prince of Wales he launched the great campaign against tuberculosis in England. To-day, after nearly 40 years, the same question can still be asked.

It is not a question which the medical profession alone ean answer. The solution is to be found in the instruction of the public. There still exist the men and women who, being' ill, refuse to seek medical advice, and the others who, having sought it, ignore it or flout it, but these are of slight numerical importance compared with those who do not know how to maintain their bodies in health. Other things they learned in their time at school, but how much instruction did they receive in the fundamental subject of health preservation? And how much do their children receive? The Minister of Health, who, fortunately, is also Minister of Education and is aware of the importance of preventive medicine, might profitably pursue this line of inquiry. If the Dominion is to have a health insurance system, its beginning should coincide with a health education campaign more thorough than any yet attempted in this country. The only way by which the premium cost of such an insurance system may be kept low is by incessant effort to prevent people from becoming a charge upon the funds. Unless the people from their early years can be firmly convinced that health is the normal condition, and ill-health usually preventable and often inexcusable, an insurance system will not necessarily be beneficial. On the contrary, by relieving people of anxiety concerning the cost of ill-health, it may tend to make them careless of its occurrence.