TUBERCULOSIS CASES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19932, 28 April 1928, Page 13

TUBERCULOSIS CASES.

NEED OF SEGREGATION. ADVANCED WOMEN PATIENTS. [BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.] CHRISTCHURCH, Friday. "It is useles's trying to combat tuberculosis unless ample provision is made to deal with and segregate the most infectious advanced cases," said Dr. G. J. Blackmore, medical director of tuberculosis institutions, in his report to the annual meeting this morning. "Thi3 is because so long as nothing is done for them, they are persistently scattering the seed which will produce a plentiful crop of tuberculosis cases in the next generation. "The crying need of the institutions here at present," said Dr. Blackmore, "is for more accommodation for cases of advanced tuberculosis among women. If anything is to be done for these more advanced cases, it ought to be done without delay. It is not as if these patients could afford to be properly treated outside. Most of them cannot, and to tell thorn they cannot receive treatment for six or eight months is simply to condemn most of them to death.

"The suggestion has been made to the hoard that more accommodation would not he required for advanced cases it patients were not kept so long in the Coronation Hospital. In effect, this means that these cases of infectious disease that nearly all come from homes where they are living under had conditions, or are exposing others to infection, are. to he taken in, treated more or Jess ineffectually for a comparatively short time, and then returned to their bad homes to continue the infective process ihere, sn order to admit similar cases living under the same conditions, and to deal with them in a similar manner. It is difficult to conceive the state of mind of one who could seriously put forward such an extraordinary proposal. " The Coronation Hospital was specially built, not only to give advanced cases of disease the best chance of recovery, but also to ensure that these patients should not be left in homes where they would lie a constant menace to others. The scheme proposed would completely do away with the function of the Coronation Hospital as a preventive agency.''