PREVENTIVE MEDICINE.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18680, 1 May 1926, Page 3

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE.

MINISTER LOOKS INTO FUTURE. (srECtAL TO "iHE .PRESS.") BLEXHEIM, April 30. The future would open up. .very great possibilities for Hospital Boards,' declared the Hon. J. A. Young, Minister for Health, at the opening of the new nurses' home. Instead of waiting for 'the people to become sick and come- -to the hospitals, the authorities would, in the cities and towns more especially, endeavour to prevent ill-health. Hc predicted a system under which outdoor nurses would go into the homes, with a view to investigating social and hygienic conditions, and so to advise arid take steps to ward oft illness. The health of the individual was everything to the community. The sick person was a burden on someone eke, even if he was rich. Thus jnore would be heard about preventive medicine, as distinct from curative medicine. :Thc aim should. - be to ' buil<l up » liealtliy community, and so to lesson the necessity for-hospitals and nurses' homes. This would save the people's poekets in the long run in the matter of doctors' bills and the upkeep of hospitals. The Minister referred in to the great work of the Plunket Society, which was one example of preventive medicine. The nurses were another illustrtaion. The time had arrived, he added, when the old idea that one should not go to a doctor only'when one became sick, should go overboard. He believed that all middle-aged people should make periodic visits to theirdoetors in order that they could discover and check disease in its incipient stages. That was the duty of the Army Medical Officer, for the men were needed to fight, and not to be 'siek, and _ tbat must be the principle to be applied to the great ciril army.