The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1928 THE COST OF BAD HEALTH

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 508, 10 November 1928, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1928 THE COST OF BAD HEALTH

TWO or three physicians in Auckland have been taking an ■“ active part in politics and the national epidemic of voluble fever, but none of the politicians has shown a marked or an intelligent interest in the work of the medical profession. And yet the subject of health should be of the first importance in the political campaign, and ought to be placed ahead of and more seriously dealt with than spectacular bubble schemes of borrowing and crude proposals for settling the unemployed and thousands of prospective immigrants on chicken farms. The question of national health vitally concerns the healthy taxpayer and robust worker as well as those who are sick and incapacitated. The cost of bad health now runs into millions of pounds sterling a year. Already, long before the first centenary of European settlement in these lovely isles, the most conspicuous building in each of the main centres of population is the public hospital. And the aggregate expenditure on hospitals, private medical attention and dentistry as an heroic precaution against disease is enough to make the inhabitants of older nations shudder with pained astonishment. Over a hundred public hospitals and allied institutions, sixty thousand patients, thirty thousand operations, and about £2,000,000 a year spent on hospital and medical service, to say nothing at all about the fortune spent annually on drugs and quack medicines, is surely a remarkable record for a young country in the making. Indeed, for a country that has but few rivals in respect of lavish natural gifts and advantages—sunshine, sootless rain, cleansing winds and bright open spaces—the cost of bad health is a notorious record. Social services under the care of a paternal Government now absorb one-third of the State’s annual revenue from taxation, and the greatest proportion of that relatively colossal expense goes to the upkeep of public hospitals. Does the politician bother about such a burden on the people? On the contrary he is more inclined to scream louder for the introduction of still more extravagant schemes of sick and unemployment insurance. Talk about remoulding New Zealand to the heart’s desire at a cost of £70,000,000 without an extra penny charge upon the taxpayer! Twice that sum of borrowed money would not cover all the needs of the Dominion as visualised by political dreamers and inflated optimists. Some amazing facts concerning the economic loss through bad health have been revealed in Great Britain by investigation of the National Health Insurance Scheme and its prodigious cost. On account of rheumatism alone a little over £5,000,000 was paid out last year under that State scheme of sickness and disablement benefit. Moreover, if the amount of wages lost to insured persons on the same account is considered the startling figure of £17,000,000 is reached. Such is the visible cost of rheumatism to Great Britain; the invisible but no less real cost, such as expenditure on institutional treatment and medicinal remedies, cannot be computed with any semblance of accuracy. No wonder the taxpayer, employers, insurance societies and harassed sufferers from rheumatic diseases are calling upon doctors to tackle the group of disorders known loosely as “rheumatism.” Unfortunately, the exact cause of rheumatism, like the cause of a common cold, is unknown. But there are worse diseases than those described as rheumatic. For example, there is cancer, and also there is the white scourge known as T.B. Both are distressingly prevalent throughout the British Empire. Someone dies of cancer in England and Wales every ten. minutes. Here, again, doctors are as children groping in the dark. It is what they don’t yet know about the cause of cancer that fills the learned books on the disease. Such at any rate is their own honest confession. Research goes forward eagerly and with painstaking thoroughness, but the great discovery still lurks in mystery. Hitherto,, the disease has been the monopoly of the surgeon. The recognised treatment has been the knife. "But an English medical writer, who is not afraid to diagnose his own profession, asserts that the surgeon’s day is nearly done. It is now claimed that radium indisputably is the superior of the knife in the treatment of cancer, and laymen are urged to believe that the dawn of a new epoch in dealing with this disease is breaking. Unfortunately, the present price of radium is £12,000 a gramme. The supply is limited and meagre. It is hoped that the British Empire may yet be able to provide radium for itself and the rest of the world. There are abundant sources of pitchblende in Australia. It is interesting to note that the supreme master of radio-activity, Sir Ernest Rutherford, the greatest New Zealander, has been appointed chairman of a special committee set up to find radium for British needs. There is ample scope for intelligent politicians in the neglected field of medical research in this politically deluded country. Health and the prevention of disease should be in the front place on political platforms. These would be a welcome change from raving about dizzy finance and fertilisers.