The Waikato Independent Incorporating "The Cambridge Gazette." THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1922. CONTROL OF CONSUMPTION

Waikato Independent, Volume XXII, Issue 2574, 20 July 1922, Page 4

The Waikato Independent Incorporating "The Cambridge Gazette." THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1922. CONTROL OF CONSUMPTION

At the conference of hospital board delegates held at Wellington last week, one of the most important questions dealt with was that of the control of consumption. Up to the. present this matter has been on a most unsatisfactory footing. Some few hospital boards have grappled with the problem in a half-hearted manner, only two boards— North Canterbury and Otago—giving the matter that attention that its importance demands. North Canterbury Board established a sanatorium on the Cashmere hills, at very considerable expense, and has done a magnificent work, while the Otago Board has also been to much pains and expense in its treatment of consumptives. In the North Island, however, very little has been done by the hospital boards, largely due to the fact that the Government established sanatoria at Te Waikato and Otaki, and, more recently, at Waipuktirau. In view of the Government's attitude, the hospital boards, glad to be free of the cost, thus endeavoured to throw the responsibility for treatment of consumptives on the Department of Health, and whenever an agitation was made for increased activity in warfare against the “white plague,” the board shelved the question, and urged that the whole treatment of the disease be made a national matter. At last week's conference the Otago representatives brought forward a remit embracing a scheme for the amalgamation of hospital boards generally throughout New Zealand for the treatment of consumptives, with a view to pooling the capital cost and maintenance in proportion to the capital rating value of the district. In the discussion that followed, the proposal was willingly supported by practically all those present, including Dr Valintine (Director-General of Health), and it was eventually resolved that the Department of Public Health be asked to confer with the mover of the remit, and formulate a scheme with details, the same to'be circulated to all hospital boards, asking them to give due consideration to it. We welcome the proposed scheme as a practical and reasonable way of dealing with a question that has.been too long shelved. The hospital boards are certainly in a position to maintain sanatoria more effectively and economically than the Health Department, which would, have an enormous task in providing for the consumptives of the whole Dominion. It seems logical that if the boards can carry out the duties of managing the ordinary hospitals, they should be equally capable of controlling consumptives' sanatoria. To nationalise the system of dealing with consumption would involve enormous response

ties and expenditure, which could, we think, be more fittingly and economically undertaken by the hospital boards. Exchanges of patients, to suit peculiar conditions, could be easily arranged, to the mutual benefit of different districts, and in many other ways the grappling with the question on broad national lines, with district supervision and equal cost to the various parts, has much to commend if. Dr Valintine stated that there would be no objection whatever to handing over the two Btato institutions in the North Island —at Waipukufau and Otaki—at any time.' Thus if the Scheme were carried into effect there would be two sanatoria in each island for a start. No fresh legislation is required.to give effect to this suggestion, and it" the details of the scheme are approved; the work could be put hi hand immediately. In view of the widespread 'devastation continually being caused by this most dreadful scourge, and the lax conditions at present prevailing, the publie will be glad to hear of the scheme being brought, to a successful issue at an early ,date.