ILLNESS RAMPANT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19698, 2 August 1938, Page 5

ILLNESS RAMPANT

GREAT BARRIER ISLAND

SPECTRE OF ISOLATION

MEDICAL AID NEEDED

AUCKLAND BOARD'S MOVE

(Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day

With winter illness rampant and adequate medical care sadly lacking, the scattered population of Great Barrier Island is at present facing what is regarded as one of the most difficult periods in decades of hardship and isolation.

It is estimated that 50 per cent of the pupils attending the schools on the island are absent through illness. Two children have died from pneumonia in recent weeks, and the schoolmaster at Katherine Bay, Mr. D. S.'MacKenzie, is not only nursing a number of pneumonia cases, but he has also been called upon to perform the sad task of conducting at least one burial service.

For many of the 400 European residents of Ihe island, their isolation has, inuecent weeks, become almost a grim spectre. Severe pneumonic colds, bronchitis, gastric influenza and other less serious ailments have taken toll of half the children attending the six small schools.

Many are stated to be in a serious QondiWon. With the services of a doctor needed in dozens of, homes, fears are entertained for some of the patients unless an improved health service is immediately provided.

Impossible Task

Granted a retainer of £SO a year by the Auckland Hospital Board, the district nurse, Mrs. McLean, wife of a farmer on the island, is the only person available to five skilled aid. The work she has undertaken is described by residents as fcigantic, but in the rugged mountainous area of 110 sauare miles it woula be an impossible task for her alone to tend to the redical needs of the popvlation.'

It is considered that even a full•time district nurse would be unable \fi cope with the number of patients that require attention. A few clay roads are ar appreciable oontribution to transport on the island. Many settlements can onlv be reached by sea and, with the weather restricting the movements of small craft around the treacherous coast, a nurse stationed at any one particular port is often powerless to assist in a case of illness which occurs at another isolated centre. In addition to the farming section of the population, about 100 men are employed on timber milling work, and there is also a large native settlement, Residents state that before the Great War the Health Department paid an annual retainer of £350 to a medical practitioner. Dr. Fox to live on the island, his fees being a matter of arrangement between the patients and himself. It is considered that £SOO would be necessary to provide a similar service to-day. This year two urgent calls for medical aid from the island have been answered by sending a doctor in an aeroplane from Auckland. Like 60 or 70 Years Ago

"When much is being made of the proposed national health service, it is interesting to observe that there are places in the Dominion still without public utilities, where life is, in some respects, on the same plane as it was 60 or 70 years ago," a Great Barrier resident stated. "Politically, the island has an interesting history for it has seldom been in the same electorate for two successive elections. Its transferase is regarded as a means of balancing the populations of the local constituencies.

"The residents feel that a small portion of the millions now being spent might be used to provide the bare amenities of civilisation for those who have pioneered a rugged and inhospitable piece of country."

Advice of the manv cases of illness on the island and the necessity for a wider health service was conveyed to the chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board, Mr. Allan Moody, on Friday. Within a few hours, he arranged a conference with Dr. Hughes. Medical Officer of Health, at Auckland, and Dr. Craven, Medical Superintendent of the Auckland Hospital, and the question was fully discussed. Suggestions Invited

Mr. Moody said yesterday that the board had written to the County Clerk at Tryphena, the district nurse and the school teacher at Katherine Bay, Mr. Mackenzie, asking for specific details and inviting their suggestions for an improved scheme, particularly in regard to accommodation and transport for a full-time nurse. Inquiry was also made as to what proportion of the nurse's time would be devoted to preventive work and in attending to the native population which are the responsibilities of the Health Department.

"If residents of Great Barrier wish to involve the board in the appointment ol a qualified nurse and a midwife, they must be prepared to help themselves and the board by arranging suitable accommodation for her, and providing for her transport," Mr. Moody added. As an alternative to providing a full-time nurse, it was possible that any trained nurse? already living on the island might be enlisted on a retainer basis. The whole matter would be considered by the board.