ATTITUDE OF HEALTH DEPARTMENT.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVII, Issue 205, 30 August 1913, Page 5

ATTITUDE OF HEALTH DEPARTMENT.

SOME STRONG COMMENTS

NATIVES IN SORE DISTRESS

HAMILTON, Aug. 30. Strong: comments were made at the last meeting of the Hamilton Borough Council on the' attitude of the Health Department in regard to the smallpox epidemic. The Mayor stated that a deputation of Natives waited on him. yesterday appealing .for- medical assistance to "be'sent' to the pahs, where there is much illness apart from smallpox.. Medical; men are refusing to visit the camps, which are also sorely in want of-sustenance.' Some kaingas are on the verge of starvation, the Natives having: no food and no money, and being prohibited to leave the camps they have ao'means of earning any. The Health Department, said the Mayor, had taken the administration of the health law out of the hands of the local bodies, but immediately it struck trouble it shirked its responsir bilities. It was impossible for the local inspector to supervise all the. camps in Waikato, which were very scattered and stretched over a wide area. The consequence was that the Natives wandered, and the deputation which called at his office was from a badly-infected camp. The, attitude of the Department' all through, he said, rivalled a Gilbert and Sullivan > opera. j It was decided to send a strong | protest to the Minister demanding ' more stringent measures to wipe out .•■the disease in the Waikato, more I strict supervision of the movements 'of Natives, and ' attention to 'their , wants.