TUBERCULOSIS MENACE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3868, 1 May 1928, Page 50

TUBERCULOSIS MENACE.

THE DANGER OF INFECTION. MORE A CCOAIMODATION NEEDED. CHRISTCHURCH, April 27. “ It is useless trying to combat tuberculosis unless ample provision is made to deal with and segregate the most infectious advanced cases, because so long as nothing is done for them they are persistently scattering seed which will produce a plentiful crop of tuberculosis cases in the next generation.” This statement was made by Dr R. G. J. Blackmore, medical director of tuberculosis institutions, in his report to the annual meeting of the North Canterbury Hospital Board this morning. The crying need of the institutions here at the present time is for more accommodation for cases of advanced tuberculosis among women,” said Dr Blackmore. “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. Alost of them cannot, and to tell them that 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 board that more accommodation would not be required for advanced cases if patients were not kept so long in the Coronation Hospital. In effect, this means that these cases of infectious disease, which nearly all come from homes where they are living under bad conditions or are exposing others to infection, are to be taken in, treated more or less ineffectually for a comparatively short time, and then returned to their bad homes to continue the infective process there in order to admit similar cases living under the same conditions and deal with them in a similar manner. It is difficult to conceive the state of mind of one, especially a doctor, 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—and the figures given show that numbers of lives have been saved there —but also to ensure that these patients should not be left in homes where they would be a constant menace to others. The scheme proposed, would completely do away with the function of the Coronation Hospital as a preventive agency.” THE CASHMERE SANATORIA. ALLEGED NEGLECT BY AUTHORITIES. CHRISTCHURCH, April 27. Further protests against the alleged lack of action on the part of the Dominion health authorities to meet the demand for more accommodation at the Cashmere Sanatoria were made by the chairman of the North Canterbury Hospital Board’s Public Health Committee (Mr A. T. Smith) at the meeting of the board to-day. The discussion arose following the reading of a letter from the Directorgeneral of Health (Dr T.H. A. Valintine) advising the appointment of a medical commission of inquiry, and urging the board to await its report. Air Smith said that he was very hurt about the matter. He quoted figures for 1927 showing the number of applications for admission and the number of admissions, and stated that while a number of women in the advanced stages of consumption had died because they could not be taken in. Only three women had died in the Coronationllospital. .The onus is on Wellington,” added Mr Smith, “ for our board has done everything possible.”

Dr Stanley P. Foster said that the sanatoria were not given treatment in the best interests of public health. The sanatoria were taking borderline cases, which had preference over the bad cases. This was the policy of the director of the sanatoria. It gave a high percentage of cures. However, it might pay the board to buy a farm near Oxford and there treat the borderline cases, leaving the sanatoria for the badly infectious

Action was held over pending the report of the commission.