MILK SAMPLING INSPECTOR

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23741, 12 September 1942, Page 7

MILK SAMPLING INSPECTOR

• APPOINTMENT STILL DELAYED CRITICISM BY CHAIRMAN OP COMMITTEE “It is hard to see any reason why this matter should not have been decided in a few seconds,’ 1 said Cr. J. N. Clarke, chairman of the milk committee of the Christchurch City Council, when commenting yesterday on delays in securing the sanction of the Department of Health to the council’s proposal to lend the department an inspector for the taking of milk samples, to pay his salary, and to afford him transport. Mr Clarke said the council had waited six or seven weeks before receiving the approval of the Minister of Health (Mr A. H. Nordmeyer) which came to hand on Monday last. Even this did not clear the way to the inspector taking up his duties, because it was found that the Christchurch office of the department had had no confirmation of the Minister’s decision. Yesterday the Town Clerk (Mr H. S. Feast) had sent a telegram to the Minister asking that the Medical Officer of Health for Canterbury (Dr. T. Fletcher Telford) should be advised of the official sanction without delay. . Early in June it was announced that the Department of Health • had discontinued providing transport for two inspectors lent -by the council for, the taking of milk samples. The salaries of these inspectors had been paid by the council. The council failed to persuade the department to reconsider its decision, and at the meeting on July 27 decided, subject to a suitable arrangement with the department, to lend an inspector for milk sampling, to pay his salary, and to provide him with a motor-car and petrol. “I fully appreciate that the department is short-staffed and that some delay in dealing with routine business is inevitable, but I cannot understand why it should take so long; to accept such a generous and entirely one-sided, offer,” said Mr Clarke. “If I had been the one called on to make the decision I think I could not have reached out for a telegraph form fast enough.” Mr Feast received no reply to his telegram yesterday.