CLOSED TO VISITORS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21959, 10 May 1941, Page 6

CLOSED TO VISITORS

Auckland Hospital ( PA) AUCKLAND, May 9. “While the action must not be taken as a scare measure, I have ordered that as from to-night the hospital shall be closed to visitors untff further notice,” said Mr Allan Moody, chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board, to-day, referring to the outbreak of spinal meningitis in the norta. “I understand the outbreak is not of a serious nature,” said Mr Moody, “but in the interests of all hospital patients a definite stand must be taken. All my advisers agree with the course taken. I hope the outbreak will be stamped out speedily.” Mr Moody said that, as usual, the hospital was full to capacity. In spite of repeated warnings by the Department of Health at Whangarei that the public should travel as little as possible to and from areas in the north so that the risk of carrying the germs of cerebro-spinal meningitis to other parts may be reduced to a minimum, there is evidence that within the last fortnight a good many Maoris have gone from place to place, especially to the Kaikohe district. The Department of Health has insisted that there is no occasion yet for alarm, but urges that travel be restricted to urgent occasions until the North Auckland area is given a clean bill of health. Through the Education Board the Department notified teachers that the Bay of Islands was a quarantined district to which students and teachers should not go for their holidays, and that it was undesirable for them to go to the Whangarei district and north of Rodney County. There was nothing mandatory in the Department's notification. It sought the co-operation of all persons. Fifty' Training College students come from the North Auckland district. All have remained here for their holidays.