TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTIVES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 41, 25 March 1914, Page 5

TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTIVES.

"QUITE ENOUGH INSTITUTIONS." DE VALINTINE'S VIEWS. The treatment of tuberculosis was one of the subjects touched upon by the North Canterbury Hospital and Charitable Aid Board: this morning. Three weeks ago representatives of the board met delegates from the Ashburton, South Canterbury, Westland, Buller, and Grey Hospital Boards with regard to consumptives being admitted from those districts to the Cashmere Hills Sanatorium. A report of the conference appeared in THE SUN at the time, but the official report of the proceedings was presented to the North Canterbury Board this morning. There was also a report —which appears elsewhere —by Dr G. J. Blackmore, on the treatment of tuberculous children.

Commenting on the position generally, Dr T. H. Valintine, Chief Health Officer, said that the lot of the consumptive on the West Coast was indeed a hard one. They had no sanatorium, and even if they had one the climate .was unsuitable for consumptives. Therefore the North Canterbury Board had acted well in allowing outside boards to arrange for accommodation at the Cashmere Hills Sanatorium for cases from districts where there is no accommodation. What was wanted in New Zealand was not an increase in the number of sanatoria, but increased accommodation at those in existence. It was true that there might be some danger of lack of accommodation at Cashmere, but he suggested that the board should make the necessary arrangements to. accommodate 20 more patients, and consider a scheme for extending the ground. He had reason to believe that some special I assistance might be given by the Government in this matter. Dr Fenwick expressed the hope that the board would be "squashed out of that wretched place" on the Cashmere Hills and have to go to Oxford, where it had a couple of hundred acres. There had been a suggestion regarding a farm colony for consumptives, but Dr Valintine, speaking a little later in the meeting, pointed out that the board should defer action on this matter. Dr Bernstein, the new medical superintendent of the Cambridge sanatorium—a gentleman of great experience of the. treatment of consumption —would pos- ! sibly be visiting the various sanatoria in the Dominion shortly, and he would report to the Department on the best means «£ dealing with consumption generally. New Zealand had more institutions for the treatment of consumption, in proportion to its population, than any other country, and the Department was very much averse to adding to the number.