HEALTH REGULATIONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 110, 10 April 1937, Page 2

HEALTH REGULATIONS.

MAGISTRATE’S COMMENT. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, April 9. Holding that a case iiad not been established and that the present framing of the regulations as to infectious and notifiable diseases under the Health Act imposed too great a difficulty on those enforcing them, Mr J. li. Luxford, S.M.. to-uay dismissed two informations against Samuel Lister, a plasterer, charged with permitting a child to attend school alter having been warned by the health authorities not to do so. The evidence showed that the warning was the result of the boy Lister having been playing with a boy who had been in hospital for infantile paralysis. The Magistrate suggested that _it wouldi be a very difficult contact. 1 lie health inspectors were doing theii duty very well by serving notices wherever there was the possibility of infection, but the regulations did not give power to declare a contact. The Magistrate indicated that he considered there should be some such power. If the officers had reasonable grounds to believe there had been contact they, should have the power to serve notices, and those notices should be obeyed. Counsel for Lister said he quite understood the department’s difficulty. He added, however, that it was only fair to his client to say he was definite there had been no contact. His boy was 15 and the suspect 7, and Lister was prepared to swear that there had been no exposing of the boy to contact.