NECESSARY REGULATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 116, 20 May 1925, Page 4

NECESSARY REGULATIONS

•The regulations now proposed by the Minister and approved by the Board of Health to 'check venereal disease simply bring into operation the recommendations made in 1922 by a Special Committee which conducted an exhaustive inquiry. That Committee was representative and competent, and, as was freely, acknowledged at the time, it carried out an unpleasant task with courage, discretion, and delicacy. The evidence submitted to it disclosed a state of affairs which made firm action imperative; and it. is important to note that this evidence was not. contradicted. Before the Committee made its. investigation there was considerable objection to anything resembling compulsory notification; but the Committee's report silenced this objection. Had the measures now proposed been brought into operation at once there would have been no opposition, and we trust that there will be no attempt now to jeVive the former alarm. Notification has' already been brought into operation, but it involves no disclosure of a patient's identity, even to the Health Department. Sufferers who seek and continue treatment' will not be further affected by the new regulations. Indeed, no sufferer has the least reason to fear unless there is an obstinate and unreasoning refusal to obtain' medical , treatment either from private medical practitioners or at the public hospitals under conditions ensuring secrecy.

Power is to be given to. the Director-General of Health, when he has reason to believe that any person is suffering from venereal disease in a communicable form, to require such person to submit to examination by a medical practi- . tioner. This, also, is in accofdance ■with tho report of' the Committee, and, sensibly regarded, involves no hardship or disgrace. An officer occupying the position of Director-General of Health wiil certainly not issue examination orders unless he has good grounds for believing such to be necessary 1. He will not act upon anonymous letters or backyard gossip. Moreover, the orders when issued entail no humiliating publicity, or even a visit to a public institution., A certificate from a private medical practitioner will be quite sufficient. This is no more than is required of any person desiring to take up life insurance, to serve with the military forces, or to enter the permanent employment of the State. Detention is also authorised ; but this authority, we may be sure, will be exercised only When all mentis of persuasion have failed to induce a person to accept treatment. , A sufferer from small-pox or scarlet fever who failed to accept treatment would be similarly, detained with much less ceremony, for here there is the right of apponl to a Magistral c agaii'ist a detention ordor. Taken as a. whole, l.he new regulations rcYenl a desire to avoid any fhippicipn of Imrfskness or humiliation, pi .suflOr.cjfS.i aii.d to teai tJjeju

with the utmost consideration which is consistent with the public welfare. Necessarily power must be given to the administrators; but that power will be in the hands of medical practitioners, health officials, and Magistrates who have proved themselves worthy of the most complete confidence.