TUBERCULOSIS BILL

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25553, 22 July 1948, Page 6

TUBERCULOSIS BILL

DEBATE ON SECOND READING

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 21. The second reading debate on the Tuberculosis Bill was continued in the House of Representatives this evening and was adjourned till to-morrow evening. Mrs G. H. Ross (Opposition, Hamilton) said that until housing conditions were improved there would always be tuberculosis. It was no use treating a person in hospital when on discharge he went back to the conditions in which the disease was contracted. She considered there should be a campaign to educate people in nutrition. “We must get nurses, built enough chest hospitals and sanatoria, and have all the equipment necessary,” she said. “Then, and only then, can the present bill be put into operation.” Mr W. T. Anderton (Government, Auckland Central) said social hygiene and proper nutrition offered better means of fighting- tuberculosis thap anything which medicine could offer. The bill provided for the removal of the grosser dangers of infection. Mr Anderton said people should not place unlimited faith in immunisation by the B.C.G. vaccine. It would be a mistake for the House or the Health Department to enlarge upon the virtues of immunisation by vaccine in preference to the building up of physical resistance. For persons particularly exposed to infection optimum nutrition offered better immunisation than the vaccine did. Nurses caring for tubercular patients should be given a special diet to strengthen their resistance. ‘Departmental Bill” Mr J. R. Marshall (Opposition, Mount Victoria) said that'the bill was to go to the Health Committee; it would have been better if those who would wish to appear before the committee had been consulted before the bill was drafted. It was a departmental bill, placing too great emphasis on departmental powers and too little on the human feelings of the persons affected. There was too little regard for the doctor-patient relationship. The departmental attitude was entitled to respect. because the men in charge were the best qualified in the particular field, but it was a very narrow field. There was a tendency to look at people in the mass as a social and medical experiment rather than as individual men and women.

Mr Marshall criticised the clause dealing with the notification of the intended discharge of a tuberculosis patient from an institution. He said patients were alarmed at the prospect of being unable to find accommodation when they came out of an institution, and already many had found doors shut against them when it was known they had suffered from tuberculosis. Mr W. H. Oram (Opposition, Manawatu) said the fact that the younger Maori people showed willingness to co-operate with the health authorities gave much hope for the future. The main attack on disease must be made among the Maori people by all the methods envisaged in the bill. Mr Oram suggested that just as a surgeon had recently gone overseas for experience in “blue baby’’ surgery, so leading chest surgeons should be sent abroad for experience which would enable more advanced treatment of chest cases in New Zealand.

Mr J. Mathison (Government, Avon) said the Government’s policy in schools had had a beneficial effect on the health of children. The milk in schools scheme in 1935-36 cost £3250 and last year £230,000. No apples were distributed free 12 years ago, but last year the cost was £14,625. The results of examinations of children showed that 50 per cent, were defective (other than dentally) in 1935-36 and in 1945-46 26 oer cent were defective. The number of Maori children examined in 1934 was 2800 and in 1946 7300, the percentages of defectives being 72 and 41 respectively.