THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1913. DEPARTMENTAL NEGLIGENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15377, 12 August 1913, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1913. DEPARTMENTAL NEGLIGENCE.

It is now three months since there appeared at Whangarei, within the official ken of the Health Department, the epidemic which the departmental officers declare to be smallpox but which Dr. Frazer Hurst an emphatically declares to be "virulent chickenpox." Whether the department or the Whangarei Hospital superintendent is correct would be of secondary importance if the departmental action were firm and intelligent, for in either case the isolation of' infected and suspected cases and the sanitary cleansing of infected areas 'Would be systematically attended to without any relaxation in the work of vaccination. The department, however, appears to have transformed itself into a mutual admiration society, wherein everybody tells everybody else how hard they are working and how competent they are, how deserving of public confidence and how entitled to public gratitude. Meanwhile, the most rudimentary precautions are being neglected, as they were neglected at the beginning of the trouble. In consequence, Auckland is being exposed unnecessarily and avoidably to serious risk of a virulent disease establishing itself firmly in the city, in the thriving provincial towns and in the still uninfected townships of the Pakeha. Whatever the disease may be, smallpox or chickenpox, it has for three months been confined to Maoris or to Europeans who have come into contact with Maoris. Smallpox or chickenpox, there, are absolutely no other cases. Some diseases may be air-borne and others may be waterborne ; some may be carried by rats and others by mosquitoes and others by houseflies, but this disease, whatever its name and its nature, is clearly and indubitably carried and conveyed by some process involving "contact" and by that alone. Houses and clothing may become infected, the use cf trains, trams, and motor-cars by infected persons may make them the vehicles of contamination and infection, but there is in every case whose history has been investigated a direct and visible connection with the original outbreak in the North. That vaccination should be inculcated and insisted upon as the recognised and demonstrated safeguard against smallpox goes without saying, but is our belief in vaccination to be allowed to interfere "sdth the unfaltering and persistent isolation and quarantining which will cetfiainly stamp out the present epidemic whether it is smallpox or chickenpox or any kindred disease? The Health Department has absolutely failed to isolate and to quarantine, made no attempt to do this at the commencement of the outbreak and is doing little enough even at this late stage in the campaign. It is easy enough to increase the supply of lymph, to make a great show of activity by vaccinating members of Parliament at Wellington, to write reports assertive of departmental activity and to take excellent photographs of shocking examples. All this the department has done and more, but it has not isolated the Maori, and it has not swept '* contacts" into quarantine at the firßt appearance of the disease in any neighbourhood. After many weeks of alarm infected Maoris are still accidentally discovered at Maori boardinghouses in Auckland while reputable citizens see our Queen Street Maoris with " rashing" faces, which may indicate much or little but does not restore long departed confidence in the Health Department. Xhe isolation methods are utterly inadequate and the departmental staff is hopelessly insufficient. The Health Officer for the district is investigating matters in Sydney or further, while only last week was it thought necessary for the Chief Health Officer of the Dominion to come to the assistance of his subordinates in a great district officially declared to be smitten by smallpox. The Minister for Public Health asserts that everything is being done that can be done by this best of all possible departments, but does anybody imagine that Mr. Rhodes would be so easily satisfied if he were Mayor or Deputy-Mayor of Auckland 1 The plain incontrovertible fact is that Auckland is being <Jlsgraced by an epidemic which would swiftly yield to effective isolation methods but to which this effective isolation remedy is not being applied. Maoris still roam our streets. Maoris still bring smallpox or chickenpox or whatever it is into our city. Infected Maoris still endanger the safety of the hundreds of thousands of Europeans in Auckland Province. This could have been avoided had the warnings given by the Herald been heeded, and it can be stopped by the adoption of the recommendations to be made to-day by the Mayor to the Minister urging the immediate adoption of measures such as the Herald has advised for many weeks past. Maoris should be isolated in their own districts and kaingas, the Health Department should have a complete list of every Maori in the city and should have individualised reports daily on the

state of their health. Sufficient inspectors and police should be placed at the Department's disposal to ensure against the success of any efforts that may be made.to evade restrictions or to conceal facts. The provision of ample hospital accommodation should be regarded as urgent and immediate ?urangements should be made to guard against the spread of infection by crowding patients into a hospital in a thickly populated suburb. Every effort should be made to trace contacts and to guard against the further spread of the disease through them. Sufferers should be compensated for any loss sustained but in every case of doubt the individual convenience should give way in the public interest. The city authorities and the hospital authorities might have done* all this under different circumstances, but could not possibly take effective action with the Health Department overshadowing them. Auckland has leaned upon the Health Department and found it a broken reed, It allowed the epidemic to break bounds. It fails to recapture control. Steadily Exhibition time approaches and if Auckland is not swept free from infection it will sustain enormous losses. Visitors simply will not come to an infected city, whether the infection be smallpox or virulent chickenpox. There is at present a lull in the epidemic, but this should not be advanced as a reason against the adoption of measures to make certain of ending an intolerable situation which exists solely because the Health Department fails to recognise* its responsibilities and to do its duty. A special Health Commissioner, energetic, vigorous and competent, armed with full authority and empowered to spend money, would root the epidemic from city and province in a month.