A DEFECTIVE SYSTEM.

Northern Advocate, 27 August 1913, Page 4

A DEFECTIVE SYSTEM.

Though there is no reason for alarm in regard to the closing and disinfection of the Whangarei school to-day there certainly seems good justification for asking that the health authorities shall take whatever steps may be necessary to expedite the reporting of cases of infectious disease. In this particular case, for instance, had the report been immediate then the combination of circumstances which led to the closing of the school would not have been possible. What has taken place is, of course, deplorable, not because the school has been temporarily closed, but because of the apparent laxity it reveals in the machinery provided for securing the early detection of disease. The whole success of such efforts as are being made to combat the epidemic rests in early notification, and the promptitude with which sufferers from the disease and contacts may be isolated. Delay may very easily be disastrous, and it cannot-be too strongly insisted that medical practitioners should recognise their moral obligations to the community and their statutory responsibilities to the State and take the speediest possible means of notifying the health authority of any case of infectious disease brought under their notice. This epidemic is a serious business to the north, and every consideration of citizenship demands that the precautions to prevent its spread should be loyally shared by everyone. This case will probably act as a warning to the community, and in the meantime we are inclined to think that the health authority should, if its regulations in respect to notification be defective, secure their immediate

amendment in the direction suggested by experience of what may occur under the existing system.