HEALTH CAMPS.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17886, 5 December 1929, Page 4

HEALTH CAMPS.

The Post Office is offering the “Christmas seals" from the sale of which funds are to be raised for the Health Department’s campaign against tuberculosis. The people of the Waikato will doubtless give ready support to this effort to overcome one of the most distressing diseases. The intention of the department is to devote its efforts specially to children's health camps. Private enterprise in this district has already done nobly in the same cause- The people have given generously for the establishment of the community camp at Okete Falls and for the development of'.the Waikato Children’s Camp League’s property—itself a free gift of land—at the Heads. The League has just opened its annual campaign for funds to give the children of the poor a free holiday and -to meet the balance of the cost of the new permanent buildings. Those who have supported the venture gladly for the past two years will, we believe, be equally generous this year. For convalescent children there is Bryant House, overlooking -the ocean near Raglan—a delightful place with a splendid record in the restoration of the sickly to full vigour. However, none of these health resorts for the young is specially set apart for such medical attention as the Health Department plans to give at its camps to undernourished and suffering children and to those threatened with tuberculosis. In other countries great things have been achieved by means of Christmas seal campaigns. In America, for instance, the death rate from tuberculosis has been reduced from 198 to 95 per 100,000 of the population. This has meant the saving of 100,000 lives in the past year, and it has been brought about largely by the wise use of the funds from the sale of Christmas seals.