Medical Research In Aew Zealand Praised

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30100, 6 April 1963, Page 13

Medical Research In Aew Zealand Praised

“Nothing is worse for research than monopoly, because no-one has a monopoly of wisdom.” the secretary of the British Medical Research Council (Sir Harold Himsworth; said at a luncheon in his honour in Christchurch yesterday. The luncheon was arranged by the North Canterbury Hoepi,tal Board, and was attended by representatives of organisations interested in medical research. When his council agreed with the British Ministry of Health to arrange for medical research on a national basis, the council stipulated there was also to be a decentralised scheme by which each hospital authority was expected to foster research in its own institutions, Sir Harold Himsworth said The local research effori was financed partly by endowment funds dating from

the time before the Ministry took over the hospitals, and partly by small grants from the Ministry.

From what he had seen up to now in New Zealand, the role of the British decentralised scheme was carried out in New Zealand bv 'he local medical research foundations, such as the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation. He ‘hough! the emergence of these foundations was the New Zealand response to the feeling that everything should not be directed from the centre Sir Harold Himsworth commended what he had seen so far of the work of ‘he New Zealand Medica l Research Council. He hoped it would be given more money so that its work could be expanded. he said Although he believed in an independent programme of 'ocal research, he thought there should be an exchange of information among the various research ■vganisations and that the district groups should be “related in a friendly bir independent manner to the central body.” When he had finished his tour of the Dominion, he would report his impressions to the New Zealand council, at the invitation of which he had come. While in Christchurch.- Sir Harold Himsworth is visiting projects at hospitals, the Dominion X-ray and Radium Laboratory, and Lincoln College. Last evening he addressed the Canterbury division of the British Medical Association.