TUBERCULOSIS RIFE IN SOUTHLAND

Evening Star, Issue 22577, 19 February 1937, Page 14

TUBERCULOSIS RIFE IN SOUTHLAND

STATEMENT BY HOSPITAL BOARD, CHAIRMAN [Per United Press Association.] INVERCARGILL, February 18. Alarm at the number of tubercular patients in Southland was expressed by the chairman (Mr T. Golden) at the monthly meeting of the Southland Hospital Board to-day. It was stated that at present there were 60 Southland patients in the Waipiata Sanatorium, more than half of the total number the institution was supposed to hold. “ The time has come,” the chairman said, “ when we need an institution for the treatment of tubercular cases too far advanced for admission to Waipiata. At present little or no provision is made for those patients, but if any headway is to be made in checking the spread of the disease early steps will have to be taken to segregate these sufferers. “ A comparison with the Wallace district shows Southland in an even worse light,” the chairman continued. “ They have the same type of people as us, living under the same conditions, yet the number of Wallace patients in Waipiata is very small. It is up to the Health Department to make a thorough investigation into the conditions .in Southland to ascertain, if possible, why tuberculosis is so rife here. If any other hospital board district had as many patients as Southland, Waipiata would be swamped by the numbers seeking admission. As it is, we are entitled to have only 36 patients in the institution.” The secretary (Mr T. Pryde) said that New Zealand had the lowest death rate in the world from tuberculosis. “ And Dr M ! Kibbin, medical officer of health at Dunedin, has suggested,” he added, “ that Southland's big proportion of tubercular patients can probably be attributed in some measure to the energy of its_ medical superintendent, who has patients admitted to the sanatorium before the disease is far advanced.”