THE PUBLIC HEALTH

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 7, 19 December 1932, Page 10

THE PUBLIC HEALTH

YEAR REVIEWED.

SATISFACTORY POSITION.

The current number of the “New Zealand Medical Journal” contains an editorial article reviewing the state of the public health as disclosed by official figures and reports. “The 1931-32 report of the Health Department,” states the “Medical Journal,’* “shows a satisfactory state of the public health as judged by comparative mortality and morbidity statistics. The general death rate of 8.34 per 1000 represents a decreased rate, while the infantile mortality rate of 32.15 per 1000 live births constitutes a < new record. The decrease in the number of deaths in the first month of life is satisfactory. The year was distinguished by a relatively low incidence of infectious diseases, with the exception of influenza, of which there was a sharp outbreak resulting in 221 deaths, compared with 131 for 1930. Diphtheria immunisation by the use of anatoxin and toxin-antitoxin as carried out in the Gisborne district is a line of attack on this disease which has come into vogue in the last few years, and constitutes a method of prophylaxis which has mot with a narked measure of success in many parts of the world. This is work in which private medical practitioners might well co-operate, as the Director-General states as follows in the report:—‘Active immunisation against dipththeria is preventive work which might well be undertaken by the general practitioner. An attempt has been made at Gisborne by the Medical Officer of Health to initiate such a scheme with a certain amount of success. The advantage of placing this work in the hands of the general practitioner is that he has more ready access to children of the pre-school age when the susceptibility to diphtheria is most marked.’ The contention expressed by the Director-General, that compulsory notification to the Department of all cases of venereal disease is undesirable should meet with the approval of the medical profession. The present legal provisions for the notification of those who neglect to attend for treatment by their medical attendant have proved satisfactory, and, as stated in the report, ‘lt is to educative rather than repressive measures we must look for the control of what constitutes as much a social as a medical problem. ’ SUCCESS OF HEALTH CAMPS. “The Department is organised into divisions of public hygiene, school medical service, hospitals, maternal welfare, nursing and dental hygiene, and the reports of the directors of these divisions are of much interest. Apart from the results of the medical inspection of our school children, which fully demonstrates its necessity, special attention is drawn by Dr. Paterson to the health camp movement to provide facilities to strengthen the weakly children and prevent the onset of tuberculosis. 'Dr. Paterson is to be congratulated on the establishment of the Raukawa Health Camp at Otaki, operating under the auspices of the Wellington Health Camp Association, and also on the stimulus she has given o this beneficial movement throughout the Dominion by her leadership. VALUE OF MEDICAL WORK. Dr. R. A. Shore, in the section on hospitals, dfaws attention to some important directions in which economies could be brought about iu hospital adminis. tration. As regards the inspection of hospitals, he states: “It appears to me that a plan of clinical inspection should be evolved by the honorary staffs of the hospitals, and where no honorary staff is available, by the appointment of an outside clinician of undoubted merit, to inspect periodically the clinical records and methods.”

During the last five years there has been a steady reduction in the number of aths duo to puerperal fever, the figures having declined from 56 in 1927 to 18 in 1931.

Miss Lambie outlines the progress made to improve the standard of nursing in New Zealand, and in doing so indicates that definite progress has been made.

Lecky, the historian, writes:—“The great work of sanitary reform has been, perhaps, the noblest legislative achievement of our age, and if measured by the suffering it has diminished, has probably done far more for the real happiness of mankind than all the many questions that make and unmake ministries.” In these times, therefore, it is well to remember that a satisfactory system of public health administration must be maintained in the interest of child welfare and maternity, to provide an efficient organisation for the control of infectious disease, to ensure pure food, efficient and economical hospitals, and to face the health preservation problems arising from such calamities as the Hawke’s Bay earthquake.