GOOD HEALTH

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 1 September 1925, Page 5

GOOD HEALTH

DOMINION LEADS THE WORLD

EXPENDITURE ON HEALTH.

REFLECTED IN LOW DEATH RATE

Speaking at the ceremony of the laying of the foundation stone o-f the new hospital yesterd]ay, Sin; Maiui Pomare quoted figures showing fclie expenditure during recent , years on public health, and the decrease in death rates which had. followed. He said that the expectations of life were greater, in New Zealand than .anywhere else -in tlie world.'. Sir Miaul said that since the Act of 1923, the Government had paid diit in subsidies to .hospital : £1,398,294. By that Act they had lightened the burden of the ratepayers by £60,V)0i). the Government expenditure on hospital const ruction within two years had .amounted to £735,173, niiade up as follows: —New general hospitals, £256,402; 'additions, £156,865; mateniity hospitals, £54,549; infectious diseases .hospitals,- £1,600; T. B. sanatoria, £35,841; old peoples’ homes, £35,367; nurses’ homes, £150,514;; .engineering services' £44,035. 'The Minister .said that the works in hand for the next five years dame to about £5,000,000, which emphasised the need for cautious control. The general heiailtih of the country was irudiicaited iby the death rates. ; lit 1922 the rate per 1,000 was 8.77, but in 1924 it was 8.29, the; lowest in the world. New Zealand was therefore the healthiest country in the world to live in; The i.nfautife paralysis mortality rate in 1922 was 41.9 per 1,000 births, and in 1924 it was 40.2—another, record for the world. The - tuberculosis rate ,in-1922. was 6.56 and in-1924. 5.67, while the' enteric rates in . the vsame years were .54 and .15 per 10,000 respectively. The. enteric death rate was an index to » country \s sanitary condition, .so that New Zealand waa fortunate in bavin sr a rate that-was almost nexit to nothing.