X-Rays

Te Ao Hou, December 1956, Page 62

X-Rays It is very important to go for X-rays when asked to do so. The X-ray may be for a follow-up X-ray, for example, after a pneumonia, for an X-ray as a contact of some other case, because your doctor wants an X-ray done or because the District Nurse thinks you should have one. People with a chronic cough ought to ask for one to be sure there is nothing serious present. Your private doctor or the District Nurse can arrange this. An X-ray is actually a valuable form of health insurance. If nothing is found, you have an easy mind. If there is something wrong, the sooner it is seen to the better. I have an X-ray myself every year. I hope that in time this may be possible for everybody. It is certainly well worth while as a means of wiping out tuberculosis. There is one special form of X-ray I must mention, what is known as Mass Miniature Radiography, M.M.R. for short. Very small films are taken which sort out the doubtful chests. A bg film is then taken to get better detail and the person with the suspicious chest is referred to the Chest Clinic so that it can be decided if treatment is needed. The Taranaki Mobile X-ray unit has been working for quite a long time now and it has proved most successful in finding cases of tuberculosis and other chest diseases. This unit owed its inception to a gift of £1000 by the Taranaki Maori Trust Board. The Health Department is getting more of such X-ray units to go round the countryside. Now for a Mobile X-ray Unit to do its job properly EVERYONE in the settlement ought to roll up, including Grandma and Grandpa! I have seen quite a lot of T.B. in Maori children where the grandmother or the grandfather was the source of the trouble. If

only half the settlement turns up, the work of the Mobile Unit is largely spoilt. Please try to see that everyone rolls up. Now X-rays will reveal nearly all the cases with lung tuberculosis. In some it will be chronic. It may not be possible to help these people very much but they can be shown how to limit the spread of infection, in itself a great help in reducing the number of new cases. In other cases the disease will be recent and early. Treatment is almost certain to prove highly successful. With each visit of the Mobile X-ray Unit there should be fewer and fewer cases of new tuberculosis to be found and these new cases will almost all be helped tremendously by our new treatments for this complaint.