Knowledge of health care inadequate’

Press, 27 April 1979, Page 22

Knowledge of health care inadequate’

Secrecy had no place in health care, said the professor of medicine at the Christchurch Clinical School (Professor D. W. Beaven) Speaking at a graduation ceremony for nursing trainees from the Christchurch Technical Institute, Professor Beaven said that thousands of New Zealanders were suffering from chronic self-in-clicted disease because they had never been given adequate knowledge of health care.

New Zealanders were too inclined to accept the myth that “somebody else” would produce solutions to health; problems. If people were to cope with; their own health, urgent i steps must be taken to re-' move much of the ignorance which surrounded health! care, he said. “Too often the individual’s perception of health is seen as something given by a doctor. In fact, the individual has a major share of responsibility for this.” Professor Beaven criticised health education in New Zealand.

“The poverty of our school, educational system allows New Zealanders to have the best teeth in the world by the time they reach 16, but the worst of a dozen surveyed nations by the time they reach 30,” he said. It allowed children to go hrough secondary schools with worse nutritional and biological knowledge than 40 years ago, and to come out of school “damaged by overemphasis on sport leading to induced aggression, excessive obesity, and premature arterial disease.” “There is no system for training good health educators, no health education council, and no real budget to counter the harmful advertising favouring cigarettes, beer, excessive fats, excessive sucrose, aggresision, and environmental pollution," Professor Beaven said. The health of al! New Zealanders in the 1990 s would’ depend on and be directly related to the amount of health information they had been given. Professor Beaven said that

two areas where the success of “self-knowdedge” had been proven were bloodpressure control and bloodsugar control. “Proper education and selfmonitoring have led in these two groups to lower health costs, better health, and better understanding of disability,” he said.

Politicians must take a greater share of responsibility in health care, Professor Beaven said. “At present, most of these opt out by saying it is not their job. They miss the fact that only they have the power to control aspects of our environment which cause bad health.”