INFECTIOUS DISEASES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20363, 18 September 1929, Page 10

INFECTIOUS DISEASES.

But for the fact that a public matter of considerable importance is involved, the splendid eagerness with which members of the Hospital Board rallied yesterday to Mr. Wallace's assistance might have been greeted with unqualified admiration of its fervour. Regrettable as is the necessity for further critical comment, the duty must be discharged. The question of the location of the infectious diseases block is not one to be settled in an atmosphere of melodrama, but by the calm examination, in the light of expert opinion, of the case for establishing the block in the grounds of the general hospital. Those members of the board who yesterday advanced arguments to justify their share in the policy to which the chairman clings did not say anything finally convincing. It is doubtful whether they convinced themselves. Their search for emergency exits from the position in which they found themselves was not very successful. They were not in agreement with a considered statement, read by one member, concerning practice elsewhere in the world. It became increasingly clear, as the discussion proceeded, that in the earlier stages of the project they were not fully seized of what was intended: this was palpable in the confusion they significantly betrayed as to whether it had been an "isolation block," properly so called, or an "infectious diseases block," that was in mind when the proposal first took shape. Committed publicly, as some of them are, to locating, at a distance from the city, facilities for treating infectious diseases, they tried to defend their present attitude by referring to the proposed structure as an isolation block in contradistinction from that. Unfortunately for them, the only expert on the board quickly exposed their error ; and it remains unshakably true that what they are now supporting is the extension, within the city, of facilities for treating infectious diseases, not an isolation block for very brief occupation by a few cases of doubtful nature under observation. This is an instance of the reasonable criticism for which they are ostensibly eager. Moreover, their citation of certain testimony to prove the site in the hospital grounds as ideal for an infectious diseases block has landed them in a logical impasse. If the site is so excellent for such a purpose, why not establish these facilities permanently there? This they are not prepared to do. They have said so. Instead, they propose to place there, at an expense far beyond what is needful for a general ward, a building whose plan of construction and equipment is dictated by the elaborate requirements of an infectious diseases block which they agree must ere long be located elsewhere. Their eagerness to help Mr. Wallace at the present juncture has tempted them to go to strange lengths. In one respect their eagerness was needless, for the Herald has gladly testified, in the course of this discussion, to the fact that "he has long served the city and district well." But that fact docs not make this wrong policy, right. However, yesterday's meeting of the board encourages the hope—or at least strengthens the desirability of expert medical opinion being outspokenly given in a corporate way; and citizens look to the B.M.A. to make soon a considered pronouncement. Till that declares against tlio widespread uneasiness, for many reasons, concerning the board's project, it remains condemned at the bar of public judgment.'