WHO IS TO BLAME?

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 61, 6 December 1918, Page 4

WHO IS TO BLAME?

The influenza epidemic has tested the capacity of the Public Health Department to deal .with such diseases, and h ; disclosed serious shortcomings. The Department has been weighed in the balances and found wanting. The public is convinced that something is wrong, and will not be satisfied until tho cause has been discovered and the remedy applied. Although it was known for months before the epidemic made its appearance in New Zealand that a virulent typo of influenza was causing alarming loss of life in other parts of the world, yet no special precautions appear to have been taken to prevent the epidemic from finding its way into this Dominion. There is difference of opinion as to how and when the disease made its' appearance in our midst; but as far as the public is able to judge the preparations of the Department seem to have been quite inadequate. Had the proper measures for keeping out the epidemic been adopted, and had the Department been rcadv for emergencies, the probabilities are that the -disease would never'have got a start. But the Department did not realise the seriousness of the position until it was too, late, and the _ organised battle did not begin until the epidemic had got a firm hold. The Department was altogether too slow and too timid. It eventually did good work in combating tha disease, but tho success ultimately achieved indicates that the epidemic might have been stamped out in its early stages if reasonable forethought and foresight had been exercised, and if the machinery necessary to safeguard the public health had been ready to operate effectively at a moment's notice.

The coming of the Makura seemo to have frightened the Department out of its wits. Days before tho vessel arrived Auckland became quite hysterical; and the unnecessary and undignified recriminations between Mn. Gunson and the Hon. G. W; Bussell made the confusion worse The Department became so flurried and flustered that, it did not know what to do with the Makura. _ What actually happened is described by the members of the Press Delegation in a statement which was published in yesterday's issue of The Dominion. The 520 people on board the steamer have just cause for complaint, and it is to be hoped that steps have already been taken to put an end to their "indefinite imprisonment under conditions which render them specially liable to contraction of tho disease," Tho "naked facts" recounted in the statoment undoubtedly "betray an extraordinary lack of appreciation of what is due to over 500 people who are compulsorily detained on the steamer. It is astonishing that such things could happen in a civilised country in the twentieth century. The treatment of the Makura and her passengers and other happenings in connection with the epidemic have so seriously shaken the confidence of tho public in the Health Department that there must be a full inquiry into tho Department's' administration, especially in reference to tho ado* quacy of its methods of preventing and combating infectious diseases. An.extremely strong case has been made out against the Department,

and if it has an answer the sooner it is made public the better, A most searching investigation is necessary in the public interest. Everything possible should be done to prevent a recurrence of such an ordeal as that through which the community has just passed.