CONSUMPTION.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 164, 28 June 1911, Page 5

CONSUMPTION.

PREVENTATIVE MEASURES. DISCUSSION AT HOSPITAL CONFERENCE. LPER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Wellington. June 27. How best to secure the administrative control of consumption was one of the questions dealt with at the Hospitals Conference to-day.

The Chairman of the North Canterbury Board expressed doubt whether either the district health officers, or even Dr. Valintine himself, could say how many consumptives there were in the Dominion. Medical men should be asked to give notification to the Health Department of all cases coming under their observation, and those suffering from the disease should be invited to present themselves for examination at public dispensaries. The treatment at these places should ho free of charge. He moved ; "That the Government should establish two well-found sanatoria and farm colonics, one in cither island.” The motion was seconded by Air. Arm strong (Marlborough). Mr. G. London (Wellington) claimed that, the sanatoria controlled by hospital boards compared not unfavourably with those under the Government. He suggested that the following motion would probably be more acceptable to the majority of the Conference:

‘That sanatoria for the. treatment of consumption be established in suitable districts near to the four most important cities of the Dominion ; that the boards of the districts embracing such cities control those sanatoria ; that patients from all the, other districts of the Dominion be available for treatment in such sanatoria; and that the ex'pense incidental to the treatment be paid by the respective districts.”

The motion was seconded by Mr. Ewing (Dunedin). Mr. Fraser (Oamaru) declared that consumption had not been dealt with in a proper way. It was an infeet ions disease, but had not been treated as such.

Mr. Kirk (Wellington) said he could not agree with the criticism of the boards. It, was not necessary to ask the Government to do everything. He would move: “That the Conference is of opinion that the notification of consumption and its allied disease be made compulsory; further, that it be a recommendation to the Government that hospital boards be given power to detain for treatment in these institutions persons who are suffering from tuberculous disease if. in the opinion of the health officer or medical superintendents of tlx* hospitals, such detention is necessary in the interests of public health. In reply to a question. Dr. Valintirm said that consumption was an infectious disease, and it was imperative upon medical practitioners to notify it. The trouble was that a case lasted for. say, three years, ami the doctors who had it in their hands during the later stages always assumed that it had been notified before. What was wanted was notification and renotification. The requirement of the law was not being carried out as it should. Wellington, June 28. Further lengthy discussion took place at the Hospitals Conference to-day. on the treatment of consumption. The following resolution was eventually passed :— “That this conference fully recognising the scourge consumption is to humanity, and the laudable efforts of the Health Department to cope with the disease, begs to assure the Department of its readiness to heartily co-operate in any scheme of a preventative or curative character that the Department may devise.