INSTITUTE OF HEALTH

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25654, 17 November 1948, Page 4

INSTITUTE OF HEALTH

Establishment By Department X-RAY SECTION AT CHRISTCHURCH From Our Own Reporter WELLINGTON, November 16. A national health institute with headquarters in Wellington is being established by the Health Department. The public library building at Newtown has been bought by the department to provide some of the accommodation for tne institute. The proposed immediate activities are as follows: (1) To stimulate a wide interest in preventive medicine and to assist the Health Department in a more practical way and to act as an agency where post-graduate courses on training in preventive medicine and sanitary science will be given to departmental and hospital officers (both professional and other) and to groups of the general public. (2) To provide a central agency by which satisfactory and up-to-date standards can be laid down to enable the public health and hospital laboratories to function in a more uniform and efficient manner. New biologicals such as penicillin, streptomycin, B.C.G. vaccine, and other vaccines or sera could be assayed in this section of the institute. The solving of many day-to-day problems now submitted to the department could also be dealt with in the small research laboratories that are planned for this building. The training of laboratory personnel in these standards from hospital laboratories throughout the country could be undertaken in the public health laboratory. Rockefeller Fellowship (3) To analyse and interpret vital statistics collected by the Government Statistician and so enable the department to recommend policies for the prevention and control of disease based on a more accurate knowledge of its present incidence and mortality. The Rockefeller Foundation, New York, has offered to train a biostatistician and epidemiologist in this work by providing a special fellowship. (4) To study control of tuberculosis. The proposed chest radiography, tuberculin testing, and B.C.G. vaccine immunisation training unit now under consideration will be incorporated in the activities of the institute, although this section will not necessarily be in the National Health Institute building. A director has been appointed in charge of tuberculosis personnel training. and a research unit and equipment have arrived. However, accommodation is not yet available. The department is trying to find suitable quarters. failing which it will use part of the Newtown library building until permanent accommodation is obtained. (5) To inspect and test all X-ray equipment in New Zealand. This work is to safeguard the health of X-ray workers and the public, and is now being conducted to a degree by the Dominion X-ray and Radium Laboratory, administered by the British Empire Cancer Campaign Society in conjunction with Canterbury University College. It, is expected that this work will be taken over by the department with the existing staff of the laboratory. This laboratory will remain in Christchurch, but will forrrf an important branch of the National Health Institute.

A committee of departmental officers has been set up to plan details of the institute’s activities and to conduct the general business administration of the institute. It is hoped that the vital statistics section and the tuberculosis personnel training unit will start work early next year. Applications have been called for appointments to the various directorates of the institute and two of the assistant directors have been promised a year’s study in America under a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation.