FIGHTING TUBERCULOSIS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 184, 24 April 1918, Page 4

FIGHTING TUBERCULOSIS

SCHEME FOR INCURABLES. , The. work of the Public Health Department in combating the spread of tuberculosis among the civil population has been to some extent interrupted by the demands made on the resources of the Department by returning soldiers suffering from consumption. The biggest of all the consumptive sanatoria in the Dominion, Te AVaikato, near Cambridge, has for some time been occupied solely by soldiers and discharged men returned from active, service. The Defence Department has again taken charge of tho sick and wounded soldiers, and will 'provide other places in which to treat those of the returned men who come back suffering ivith this disease. The Minister of Public Health staled yesterday that lie hoped soon to have the Cambridge institution available win for the reception of civilian patients. Ho understood that the Defence Department intended to erect a new institution in the Hawke's Bay district, and he hoped that when this institution should be no longer required by the military it would be useful as a valuable addition to the civilian institutions of the Dominion. Another institution was to bo erected in tho South Canterbury district. . ' _ . ' "At present," said the Minister, "our effort is to get control of cases in the early stages, when the disease incurable. The importance of early treatment is being now fully recognised, and I believe thnt this will have the effect of eteadily reducing the spread of the disease. It is, however, absolutely necessary that provision should bn made for Ihose unfortunate people who are suffering from the disease in advanced stages, and who are incurable. Medical superintendents' express the opinion that the housing of these cases in the institutions is most undesirable, and, in fact, it is their custom to discharge euch cases when they prove to be incurable. The result is thnt these unfortunates have a painful period beforo them, during which they are a grave source of danger to their families among whom they'have to live. Up till the present no provision has been made for this class of cases, but I have instructed the Acting-Chief Health Officer, Dr. Frengley, to formulate a scheme for the establishment of one institution in each island, where chronic and incurable enses may be held and 'treated."