MAORI BOY'S DEATH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23807, 13 May 1939, Page 11

MAORI BOY'S DEATH

LACK OF MEDICAL AID

RECOMMENDATION BY JURY

(Per United Press Association) GISBORNE, May 12

The opinion that the case should be brought before the Health Department with a view to departmental action to make the Natives appreciate the value of hospital and medical treatment was expressed in a rider by the jury at the inquest on a Maori boy, Makihi Tepeeti, aged eight, who died at Tahunga on May 9. Dr Harold Angell expressed the opinion that death was due to tuberculosis. Medical attention in the past few months would not have saved the life of the child. Peata Tepeeti gave evidence that he had not called in a doctor or the district nurse, but that he asked Jack Waikato to treat the boy, whom he did not want sent to hospital. Waikato, who advised sending the child to hospital, took the boy to his camp. Witness told the coroner that he did not like the hospital or doctors. Jack Waikato testified that the Maoris did not like the hospital, and consequently Tepeeti vould not send the boy there. During the three weeks the boy was at his camp his health seemed to improve, but the boy died on Tuesday. . . The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the medical evidence.