QUARANTINE METHODS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17038, 20 December 1918, Page 5

QUARANTINE METHODS

MANUKA AT SYDNEY.

"NEGLECT AND BUNGLING.

PASSENGER'S INDICTMENT.

"I have been quarantined in Turkey and Greece during cholera epidemics. I have beep through smallpox epidemics in South Africa, New Zealand and China, and plague in India, Egypt and elsewhere. I hare passed through hundreds of medical examinations aboard all kinds of ships touching all kinds of civilised and halfcivilised porta, but never during my whole experience in ocean travel have I met" with such shocking indifference to health and dignity and decency until I came to the door of this white man's country on the 13th of November," ; , This statement was made in Sydney by Mr. Louis 0. M. Reid, who with his wife •<,'. was a passenger by the steamer Manuka, '-'■ which arrived at Quarantine, Sydney, from Wellington, on Wednesday, ' November 13. ' Among the. allegations made by Mr. Reid in regard to the treatment of the/ passengers by the vessel at Sydney are the following :■—■'-' That the Manuka lay at Quarantine for 28 hours before the first influenza patient was removed ashore. \ ' r/' That it was not until the, morning of Friday, November 15—over two days after arrival at Quarantine—that the last of the cases reported on the Manuka's, arrival was put ashore, and that during this time no isolation of patients 1 took placed That at ten o clock on 'the morning" of the arrival of j the Manuka at Quarantine, Wednesday, November 13, all first-claw and steerage passengers gathered in the : ' smoking-room at the game time, and file4' : ' past a doctor of the quarantine staff, who sat at a table checking the names'"of passengers as they were called off; that dur- i ing the roll-call no attempt was made by u ' any doctor to take the temperature .of any passenger, nor. to otherwise medically' < examine any passenger. ; ; ■ ::,,. '~ \*..f. That not until the afternoon of Monday, November 18—five and one-third days after arrival at Quarantine— the first medical examination of passengers : of •* the Manuka .'take' Braallpaga, of the quarantine staff, .taking,the','pulise " of each passenger and member -of the crew, and two nurses taking the temperature of internees for the first tune. That on the evening 'of November £7— • four and a-half , days after arrival at v Quarantine— nurses came aboard the Manuka > for the first time-, rendering the, first assistance that had been given since '■ arrival at Quarantine. .. \ '.% > That the first-class passengers of s the Manuka, shocked .and indignant .at v ' the- • neglect and indifference of the health authorities, held a . meeting of .protest "<■> aboard the. Manuka on ,tho : morning Friday, November 15,; and passed resoiu- : tions against the mdiscriminate mixing of -'. sick and well, the, lack of medical attention, and the dangerously insanitary con- ;• dition of the ship as well as the inhalation fcrrangement ashore. •;, After detailing a number of other incidents _ connected with the Manuka's period in quarantine, Mr. Reid concludes: 'To have to stand by helpless and see deoent, c!aan women like my wife, -and ; . elderly refined mothers of.. nseful.men herded into stuffy, evil-smelling Inhalation chambers, and put through all 'manner of hardship and disappointments day. after day for two long weeks until their nerves are so shattered with the indignity of it all that they are in condition to catch any disease, should be enough to snake every decent, chivalrous, patriotic man blush for shame. ■■•: ;: v-v-\n--.\ "The absence of your chief health,, authorities in Melbourne during a crisis like this, obliging their subordinates hero to have to wire back and forth for &=■<' structions, and to have three badly overworked doctors in charge of several hundred patients and a half-dozen ships, so that through the very ohyeical inability of these men to properly attend to each ship the healthy passengers must be held for two weeks and regarded as contacts until the doctors can get around j to them is scandalous. "It is not against quarantine measures that I am protesting. It is against the shocking lack of them. Your Health,'.' Department did not quarantine tha Manuka passengers. They simply im-''' prisoned them. That any of us remained' well during the 19 days' menace since we sailed from Wellington is little short of remarkable."