HEALTH REPORT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 198, 4 August 1928, Page 11

HEALTH REPORT

DENTAL TREATMENT OF CHILDREN PLEA FOR COUNTRY DISTRICTS WEEKLY HOLIDAY FOR NURSES URGED.

[Special to “Tribune.'’] Paflt. Buildings, Aug. 4. When discussing the Health Report in the House of Representatives yesterday, Sir George Hunter (Waipawa) assured the Minister of Health that while what had already been done in the dental treatment of children in the country was appreciated yet more should be done. They could not have healthy people without good teeth. He thought that children attending the private schools should be given the benefit of dental treatment in a similar way to those children attending the public schools, for their health was equally important. Cabinet, he urged, should provide sufficient money for the proper dental treatment of children.

Mr H. M. Campbell (Hawke’s Bay) said that the whole question of rating for hospital purposes should be overhauled as it was at present inequitable. Another matter that required attention, said Mr. Campbell, was the giving of a day’s holiday a week to nurses. Six days a week was long enough for anybody to work and nurses should not be compelled to be on duty for seven days. They should be given an opportunity of getting some pleasure out of life. A plea for backblocks dental nursing attention was also made by Mr. Campbell, who said that more nurses should be made available. It was not always possible for children to be sent into town.

LOW BIRTH RATE A MATTER FOR GRAVE CONCERN. [Special to "Tribune.”] Wellington, Aug. 4. The annual report of the DirectorGeneral of Health states that the lowest birth rate yet recorded in New Zealand was that of the year ended March 31, 1928. The actual rate was 20.29 per 1000, which was regarded as unsatisfactory. The Director said it was matter for grave concern and he had no sympathy with the advocates of birth control, who appeared to be overjoyed by the fact that fewer children were being born in a country so favoured as New Zealand. The newborn infant was New Zealand’s best immigrant.

The increase of deaths from puerperal septicaemia was somewhat disturbing. A table in the report shows that New Zealand stands fourteenth among the countries of the world in so far as deaths from puerperal causes are concerned. The lowest in the world was Denmark, with 2.26 per cent. New Zealand's rate was still relatively high. Infant deaths have been reduced to 1080 in the first .rear of life, and of these 540 occurred in the first week of life.

APPALLED AT HOSPITAL EXPENDITURE. “I am very proud of our New Zealand hospitals and the work of the hospital hoards controlling them,” states the Director-General of Health. “Without the hek of these boards it would be impossible to build and otherwise extend the hospitals we now have but there is reason in all things and. personally. I am appalled at our hospital expenditure, actual and proposed, especiallv in certain districts. But Ido not blame the boards entirely for this. If it were nossible for members of hospital boards in the Dominion to visit the Old Land and other countries they would come back to this country very pleased and very proud not only of our hospitals but of our public institutions ns a whole. They would think, I am sure, that for a population of harelv 1 500,000 souls we have done not so hadlv but extremely well, and all that in about the lifetime of some of rmr v»rv awd nioneers.