PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 266, 30 July 1918, Page 4

PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE

It has become painfully evident of late that in dealing with matters ot. public health we are lagging behind the times, with results that are mildly desoribed as unfortunate. People who are blind or indifferent to other aspects of the question arc seriously alarmed, and not without reason, at tho rapidly growing increase in public expenditure on hospitals and charitable aid. Those who arc capable of a broader outlook recognise in addition that our standards of health' and our measures to prevent or check disease in tho community are not what they should be in a country like New Zealand—above all, that where children arc concerned our measures to safeguard and promote health _ fall deplorably short of what is imperatively demanded equally in the interests of the children themselves and in the interests of the State. An article by Dn. Edqar Whitaker, of _ Palmerston North, which appears in our news columns to-day, brings out very clearly the defects and shortcomings of our existing system of Public Health administration and advances constructive proposals of reform which merit attentive consideration by the responsible authorities concerned, and also by the general public. Dn. Wjiitaker's observations have weight as coming from an expert qualified by practical working experience to review the operations of the Public Health Department and show where they fall short of what is necessary. His pithily worded plea for reform bears evidence throughout of a competent grasp of tho problem under review. No one can possibly deny or assail his leading contention that it is in every way wiser and more economical to prevent disease than to allow it comparatively free scope to spread and then concentrate upon costly measures of treatment and cure. How far we are from having adopted this sane policy appears strikingly in the fact that tho Dominion spends a day 011 measures calculated to prevent disease and £2000 a day in treating disease. Taking account of the enormous resources that modern Hcience has made available for the. prevention of.disease these figures in themselves constitute a sfcronn indictment of our existing system of Public Health administration, and go far to explain why expenditure on our public hospitals is increasing by leaps and bounds. Our object is to direct attention to Dn.' Whitakkr's able statement nf the ease_ for reform and not to repeat it in paraphrase', but we cannot leave the subjcct without strongly endorsing his contention that the adoption of rational methods to safeguard and promote the public health is not a matter Ihiit should be postponed until after the war. The war has emphasised fhe need for economy, but it is not economy but waste ot the worst kind to neglect the means that are at hand of maintaining the highest possible standards of health throughout the community, and above all in its juvenile population, now too often exposed even in tlic public schools to infection and dieeaac which might easily be checked or prevented. The adoption of remedial measures might lead in some directions to a reduction instead of an incrcaso in public ox-

penditure, but oven where <*in additional outlay is called for it certainly oujjht to bo the governing consideration that then; is no economy in permitting the continued existence of conditions which mak:> dircctly for the propagation and spread of disease.