PUBLIC HEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 September 1924, Page 8

PUBLIC HEALTH

DEPARTMENT’S KEPOKT.

WELLINGTON, September 9. The report of the Department of Public Health was presetned to the House of Representatives to-day. It expressed regret that so far the proposals of the Department to the effect

that the councils' of the large centres should appoint whole-time medical officers has not been favoured by the councils concerned, and though the Department must naturally conclude that the Corporations are satisfied with the present arrangement, the fact remains that the sanitation and general good health work of the larger towns could be better supervised if the councils would but agree to the Department’s proposal as to the appointment of whole-time medical officers. In the sanitary government of some of our larger cities, there is certainly room for improvement. So far as the present health districts are concerned, the work of the Department has been to some extent decentralised, inasmuch as the medical officers of health have been given more direct powers of supervision and control over departmental activities within their districts. The report adds: — Now that the economic outlook is brighter and the personnel of the Department has been somewhat strengthened, we can look forward with a certain degree of confidence to increased activity and better results in the cause of preventive medicine. Dr H. M. Watt, Director of the Division of Public Hygiene, draws attention to certain features affecting the public health, which may be re-: garded as disquieting, chief of which is the very lbw birth rate. It is very hard to impress on mothers the fact that child-birth is not a disease, but a normal physiological process. However, more will be said on this subject in another portion of this report. The high rate of still births and the mortality rate of infants under one month is also a matter for concern. On the other hand, the crude death rate of 9.03 places New Zealand in a more favourable light, as does indeed its infant mortality of 43.8 per 1000 births. In this connection all thanks are due to the Plunket Society for its untiring efforts to make this infantile mortality rate the lowest in the world. The death-rate from tuberculosis, 6.21 per 10,000, still shows a tendency to decline. The gradual fall of this death-rart is certainly satisfactory. The value of early sanatorium treatment cannot be too strongly stressed. It is early-yet to speak of the results of Professor Dreyer’s vaccine treatment, which has been tried at Pukeora.

In regard to puerperal fever, it is predicted that the regulations gazetted for the conduct of private maternity hospitals should, if reasonably carried out, have a good effect. Dancer, the report states, still claims a. high death-rate, 8.75 to 10,000 persons living in comparison with 8.52 for the year before. The Department is fully alive to the seriousness of the matter, and is keeping in close touch with the -Imperial Cancer . Research Fund Committee in London and other research bodies in various parts of the world. The use of radium is still in the experimental stage, and just yet does not justify any definite statements to to its curative issue.

In reference to goitre, special mention is made of the worb carried out by the school medical officers and by Professor Kerens, of Dunedin. The organised work of the Department in this direction has proved particularly valuable.

Venereal diseases are far too common.' The -V.D. clinics which have been placed under the control of the public hospitals, continue to do good work. It is to be regretted that the Department and the medical profession have not more direct control over those who have contracted these diseases, who can and do at present spread them with impunity. Legislation on the lines suggested by the V.D. Commission is long overdue, but is proposed for this session.

Thirteen deaths occurred under anaesthetics in 192’ in comparison with 22 for the previous year, representing a satisfactory decrease. The majority were cases in which the expectation of life would have been short, however. Three deaths took place during dental operations, and it is evident that the administration of general anaesthetics in such cases is accompanied by a certain amount of risk. This matter has been bicught under the notice of the British Medical Association. On instruction from the Department, the Dominion l-’bcratory has carried out a number of analyses of standard anaesthetics on the market. Except in a few cases wheie there was no serious defect, the result showed that the recognised standards are being observed. A proper anaesthetics register prepared by the Department has been introduced into the majority of our public hospitals, so that reliable records as to the administration of anaesthetics should in the future be available to the medical staffs and the Department.