Tuberculosis Problem

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 41, 11 May 1927, Page 8

Tuberculosis Problem

Auckland’s Need of a Sanatorium

Recently issued statistics show that tuberculosis cost New Zealand 727 lives in 1926. The death rate from consumption is falling- away—it was as high as 851 in 1920 and the decline, slight though' it is, is evidence of the success of the campaign against the disease. Much more may be done, however, for T.B. sufferers, and in the Auckland province the provision of a sanatorium is a matter of urgency

Fourth among the causes of death in New Zealand, tuberculosis kills more than five in 10,000 of the people. Compared with cancer, that malignant scourge which carries off nine from each 10,000 of the population, the present occurrence of tuberculosis is not alarming. New Zealand has, indeed, grounds for gratification that the death-rate is so low. In New Zealand the rate of death from tubercular diseases is lower, except for South Africa, than in any other country which .compiles mortality statistics, but the incidence of T.B. in New Zealand is sufficiently pronounced to indicate the terrifying toll the seourge exacts in a country like Finland, where nearly 30 of every 10,000 perish from its effects. South Leads The Way The Auckland province, as the home of a third of the Dominion’s population, shares to a proportionate degree the tuberculosis victims of the country, and necessarily, as the disease falls more heavily upon town dwellers than on those who live in the bracing air of the country, Auckland city harbours a large number of sufferers. Though there are many more people in the North Island than in the South, the South has led the way in many humane advances, and its treatment of tuberculosis has been one of them. Both in Canterbury and Otago sanatoria have been established through the enterprise of hospital boards. Otago has Waipiata, and CanterburyDr. Clive Blackmore’s famed institution on the Cashmere Hills.

While South Island hospital boards, either individually or in groups, have tackled the T.B. problem courageously, the North Island has relied on the Government. Hence the only sanatoria in the island are in the south, at Otaki (for women) and Pukeora (for men). A sanatorium formerly existing at Cambridge, in the Auckland province, was closed some years ago, in the face of strenuous protests, and the populous North is thus without facilities for the care of incipient T.B. cases. Spasmodic efforts by the Northern hospital boards have allowed chronic cases to find limited accommodation. At Auckland the hospital board controls an annex in the Domain, and the home for chronic cases at Epsom, where there is accommodation for about 70 patients. Though nor overtaxed just now, the accommodation at Epsom is often found insufficient and the authorities have had to take the painful course of turning chronic sufferers away. Auckland’s Serious Problem But it is the lack of a place where early cases may be treated that is

Auckland’s most serious phase of the tuberculosis problem. In 1926 the health authorities were notified of 139 fresh cases in the Auckland Hospital Board’s district. The figure maintains the level of recent years, and indicates that the number of sufferers hereabouts must run into several hundreds. For many of these the only hope of succour lies at Pukeora or Otaki. The necessity of going so far away from home and relatives, at a particularly distressing period, presents to the victims a new and tragic aspect of their plight, and a number prefer to stay in Auckland. Others •j't y y -■!- ~i? -ft rr -y- ~r ~r ~rr ~r

are unable to make the necessary financial arrangements, under which the Government requires its fees to be guaranteed, and they, too, are denied proper treatment.

For a remedy there has lately been evidence of a humane proposal to establish a sanatorium near Auckland. The possibility of making a Dominionwide arrangement by which hospital boards shall co-operate in the interests of T.B. sufferers is to be considered by the executive of the New Zealand Hospital Boards’ Association, of which Mr. W. P. Wallace, Auckland, is chairman. The Auckland and Waikato Hospital Boards are both willing to join forces for the benefit of consumptives in the North, and if a practical proposal is brought down by the executive, it is likely that a sanatorium to care for tubercular patients from Taumarunui to North Cape will be established. The administration, as with the Wai piata institution, would be shared on a basis of population by the hospital boards concerned. As to the location of the sanatorium, that is a matter for the future, but a site on the Waitakere Ranges has been suggested.