AN UNDESIRABLE IMMIGRANT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 12

AN UNDESIRABLE IMMIGRANT.

AN ADVANCED CONSUMPTIVE CASE. > No settlement as between the Health Department and the Hospital Board has yet been arrived' at in regard to the case of the consumptive immigrant who - was landed in Dunedin^ a few weeks ago from the s.s Moraysiiire! Dr Ogston, District Health Officer, stated hie position in the matter to a Times reporter on Friday In the. first place,' he said, he received no intimation, from any of the other ports at which the .Morayehire -called that there was a person on board .who .had been .prevented from landing there. Tse chip had been at fcltree ports previous to coining to Dunedin, and consequently a medical inspection here ,w^s. not, under the circumstances, considered necessary, .nor was it made. This was tbe intended port of arrival of tie consumptive, ?and he landed here, though the Collector of Customs took the precautionary measure of obtaining a- boad itpm the ship's" agents ior the sum of £100, for the reason that he viewed the- case with suspicion. On as-rival here the immigrant went to work on a farm at Gore, but hk services we*e very soon jdispeeas&cf with by the farmer owing to ilis being 1 <juite unfit for anything. Tile first that Dr ~Ogston heard of the case was from a Dunedin doctor, 'who informed him that act had this <x>nsump(tive under his care, residing in a lodgrng-honee in- tbe city, and he asked that he be removed to the Rock and Pillar Sanatorium. That was a month after his arrival here. Tbe unfortunate man was turned out of the place he was lodging in, and then,, went to an hotel, but was turned out of there also. As soon as D? Ogston received notice of the man's presence in Dunedin he cent a formal notice to the secretary of the Hospital Board asking that the patient be received for treatment- The order was returned with a refusal. It was sent on to the board again, and thw time a reply was received to the effect that the Minister of Public Health had directed that tbe board could not deal with the case. That, Dr Ogston states, be found was merely a verbal statement, and having, no written authority for it, he once more notified the board that in refusing to comply with his request it had made itself liable to a penalty £10 for delaying' and -abstracting the execution of such an ordeT. The town clerk was. also written to, as the representative of the local authority, asking that- action be taken by him in the matter for the safeguard of the public health. The ship's agents had deposited a bond for £100 with the Collector of Customs to cover, their .liability, -and the* board was entitled to draw on that amount for the upkeep of the patient. There would therefore be no dTain on its own funds. Furthermore, incurable consumptives had been taken in hand by the board on previous occasions, and there was nothing to prevent the same being done again. The stand taken by the Hospital Board, as explained to our reporter by Mr Walter (chairman), is that the man should never have been permitted to land here, and if a mistake —was made in allowing him to come into the country, it was not for the board to undertake responsibility in the matter, it -would' establish a very dangerous precedent indeed if the board were to comply with the demand now made on it. It wbb difficult to say where that eort of thing would end. The people who subscribed to the coat of maintaining the board's institutions had -certainly no right to be saddled with the cost of the upkeep of ooiwuroptivee who were by a mistake permitted to land here from the Home Country. The £100 provided by the chip's agents would cover the maintenance of the patient for one year only, and he might remain in the institution for a gpod many years after that. The board, said Mr Walker, was not in any way antagonistic to the Health Office*-, but it was anxious to protect its own interests and to prevent tbe sub- j soribers to the cost of the unkeep of the sanatorium from being, victimised. The board was not going to accept the man un- j less authorised by the Minister of Public Health to do so. He had communicated with the Minister, and a reply bad been : receive* that the board would be advised of the department's decision on the matter. Since that reply had been received the position had advanced somewhat towards a solution. " I had a conversation to-day wifch the Hon. Mr Millar," said Mr Walker, "and be considers that there is every possibility of the shipping company taking the «i<n Home again." Such a couree would

' appear, to be the only-way in which, what . is certainly an -unfortunate occurrence can be righted.