PREVENTION OF DISEASE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 201, 26 July 1926, Page 6

PREVENTION OF DISEASE.

AIM OF THE MINISTER. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, July 25. A handsome new block, known as the Wallace Wards at Auckland Hospital, was opened by the Minister of Health (Hon. J. A. Young) this afternoon. The new block- and its equipment are a revelation in modern hospital architecture and furnishing. During his recent visit to New Zealand, Dr M. MacEacliern, the noted ority on hospital administration, said that nowhere in the world was there a finer hospital building. The new building was designed by the Hospital Board’s architect, and was built at a cost of £BI,OOO. The visitor is struck by the spacious and well-ventilated wards, large and airy balconies, and elaborate and extremely modern equipment.

Greater development of the system of out-patient treatment for prevention of disease and sickness in the community was advocated by Mr J. A. Young, Minister of Health, in opening the wards. “I would like to see the prevention of disease taken up to a greater extent by hospital boards,” the Minister said. “Hospitals are very expensive, and, to my mind, it is better for the community to take steps to prevent disease than to devote all its attention to caring for people after disease has taken them. .1 feel there is a great work to be done in this direction, not only by the Health Department, but also by hospital boards, in the greater development of out-pati-ents’ departments, and by the nurses going out among the people and cooperating with the nurses of the Health Department.” The necessity of reducing maternal mortality and the infantile death-rate was stressed by Mr Young, who paid a tribute to tho investigations carried out abroad in this connection by Dr Sidney Allen, of Auckland. As Minister of Health he would not be satisfied until the maternal mortality rate was reduced to something below three per thousand. He was sure that the chief cause of the present death rate was ignorance, for which the remedy was to be found in extension of nursing and information services.