MILK SUPPLIED TO SCHOOLS

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23446, 29 September 1941, Page 6

MILK SUPPLIED TO SCHOOLS

COMPLAINT FROM ELMWOOD FILE OF CORRESPONDENCE The file of correspondence setting out what followed a complaint by the Elmwood School Committee about the condition of the milk issued one day to the children there has been made availabel to “The Press’’ by the school committee. It sets out that on May 9,last the committee wrote to the Health Department in Christchurch stating, that the milk had been rejected on March 19 by the headmaster—who said it was so thick it would not run out of the container—and asking for an analyst’s report. On July 12 the committee wrote again, saying that no reply had been received and asking for one. , The Medical Officer of Health (Dr. T. Fletcher Telford) replied regretting the omission in not replying to the letter, but stating that the analyst’s report was quite satisfactory, the milk complying with the reductase test—the standard test for trying the keeping qualities of milk. He assured the committee that the department had a regular system of checking the milk supplied to schools, and would be'-at all times happy to investigate complaints. The committee then took the further step of writing to the Director-Gen-eral of Health (Dr. M. H. Watt), enclosing a resolution that in the committee’s. opinion, based on the report of the headmaster, the milk was unfit for human consumption, and express* ing extreme dissatisfaction with , the reply from the Health Department, and also with the delay by the department in supplying the report. The same resolution was sent to th# Canterbury Education Board. . . Dr. Watt, in his reply, stated: "Whilst there was delay in replying to cdrr?S* pondence. for which the Medical Officer of Health has expressed gret, it does not appear that there was any delay in arranging for the testing of the milk at the headmaster's request, and the analyst’s report indicated that the milk was of a satisfactory standard. The department is concerned at all times to ensure that the milk supplied to the schools is wholesome and ‘safe,’ and a very great amount of supervision is exercised to this end." The final word in the discussion was a further letter from the school committee to Dr. Watt, which ws again desire to point out that the headmaster’s report to us was the milk in question was entirely unfit for human consumption, and also it was so thick that it would not run out of the container. In view of this report wc would ask you if you would consider that the milk was of a ‘satisfactory standard’ to supply to school children.