PUBLIC HEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 291, 8 December 1937, Page 11

PUBLIC HEALTH.

AMENDING BILL.

FIRST IN SEVENTEEN YEARS.

PASSENGERS BY AIR.

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.)

WELLINGTON, Tuesday.

When the Health Amendment Bill was introduced into the House of Representatives to-day by Governor-General's Message, the Minister of Health, Mr. Fraser, said there had been no amendment to the Act for 17 years, and the measure was drawn to remedy certain weaknesses that had been revealed and to provide for regulations concerning people arriving from overseas by air.

The bill was read a first time. It will be circulated, and when the House reassembles in February will be referred to the Health Committee.

The conservation of public health in areas the jurisdiction of local authorities, such as outlying islands, is to be a function of the Health Department, which is empowered to charge fees for such service.

The bill includes certain provisions concerning the obligation of local authorities to provide sanitary works. The Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin Drainage Boards are brought under the jurisdiction of the Board of Health in the same way as other local authorities, and for the purposes of the principal Act are to be regarded as local authorities. Sanitary Inspectors. Sanitary inspectors are to be qualified in the terms of the principal regulations before they can be appointed. The Director-General of Health may, on agreement with a local authority, appoint an inspector of health, who shall have all the powers of a sanitary inspector. The clause concerning the appointment of sanitary inspectors specifies that the regulations may prescribe the qualifications of fully-qualified sanitary inspectors, and may prescribe different qualifications for persons appointed on probation and undergoing training as inspectors. The regulations may further prescribe conditions subject to which persona who are not fully qualified as inspectors may be employed on probation. The principal Act is consequently repealed. Pure Water. The bill extends the principal Act to provide that a sufficient supply of pure water is to be supplied free for the use of persons employed in business premises.

Closing orders in respect of insanitary premises are to 'be served on the occupier, and, if the occupier is not the owner, a copy is to be served on the owner or his agent. If the owner cannot be foutid, or is out of the country, the occupier shall be regarded as his agent.

Ihe restrictions on the establishment and extension of an offensive trade are tightened up in another clause.

Hie functions of harbour boards are extended and they are, under the bill, deemed to i>e a local authority under the principal Act, with respect to all wharves or tidal lands or tidal waters under its control and not within the district of any oth«r local authority; all buildings or other erections or structures on any such wharves or tidal lands, or within the limits of the harbour; and all ships for the time being in the harbour. The principal Act is consequentially repealed. Passengers by Air. The powers of medical officers of health to isolate persons suffering from infectious disease are increased to cover ."carriers" of infections disease. The bill provides for certain modifications of the principal Act in regard to quarantine of ships, and the authority of the port health officer, and the full quarantine restrictions are extended to apply to aircraft and persons and goods carried by aircraft. Provision for the medical examination of school pupils is extended to cover schools other than public schools on the application of the controlling authority to the medical officer of health. Protection from civil or criminal liabilitiy is afforded persons acting.under the authority of the principal Act or of the Social Hygiene Act unless they have acted in bad faith or without reasonable care.