The Star. FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1922. FRESH AIR HOME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16714, 21 April 1922, Page 6

The Star. FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1922. FRESH AIR HOME.

The report presented to the Hospital Board by Dr G. J. Blackmore regarding the Tuberculosis Department of the Board's activities was an exceedingly interesting survey of the position in relation to the occurrence of the disease in the Dominion. Dr Black mo re has made the study and treatment of consumption his life's work, and he is un doubtedly the leading authority in the Dominion on the subject. His opinion is a weighty one, and we will be sui prised if his pronouncement does not result in action being taken on a wider basis than in the past. It is rather staggering to be informed that in New Zealand during the past twelve years no real progress has been made in the fight against consumption. Only two Hospital Boards—North Canterbury and Otago-—have sanatoria, at which patients may bo scientifically treated when the disease is in its early stages. Dr Blackmore touches on a tragedy when he says that Hospital Boards arc in the position of being compelled to tell persons with early and probably curable disease that they can offer no treatment, but that when they become incurable there will be a place in which they can die, away from their homes and friends. The North Canterbury Board has attempted to deal nde quately with the consumptives within its borders,’ hut the national benefit of this provincial effort is reduced because the district is surrounded by others in which no similar effort is being made. The difficulties which confront an effective campaign in Canterbury are enlarged by the absence of similar combative efforts in other parts of the country. Dr Blackmore’s plea for the provision of the Children’s Fresh Air Home emphasises the importance of such an institution. He points out that the consumption which shows itself in adult life is due to infection received in childhood, and that no real progress can be made in the campaign against the disease until efforts are directed to prevent this infection, or to overcome it before it has done harm.

“ In the years which have passed while nothing has been done,” says Dr Blackmore, ‘‘ hundreds of children have been exposed to infection in their own homes, and the seed has been sown which will provide a rich harvest for the Grim Reaper in the-years to come.” It should not be necessary to say more

in support of the early' provision of the Fresh Air'Home. There is one aspect of Dr Blackmore’s report which is of the greatest importance, in which he refers to the absence of a defined national policy, or a universal and uniform scheme for dealing with tuber culosis in New Zealand. The fight against consumption is a matter of national concern, and it is essential that it should he waged by the whole country’ in co-operation. We do not know any man in New Zealand who is more competent to organise and direct such n combined effort than Dr Blackmore. He has established the Cashmere Sanatorium on a sound basis, and it is now undoubtedly the leading institution of its kind in the country. There is a larger field of work open, and it seems to us that the time and the man liav9 arrived.