PUBLIC HEALTH.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 445, 28 January 1919, Page 2

PUBLIC HEALTH.

Previous experiences have apparently failed to have any effect on the Public Health Department or perhaps more correctly speaking we ought to say oh the Minister of Public Health. The latest instance of the Department's or Minister's "curious" method of administration was furnished on the arrival in Auckland last Saturday morning of the s.s. Niagara. The vessel was boarded by the Department's Health Officer, who finding a case of Influenza on Board ordered the boat to the quarantine station, whither she proceeded. The passengers, we are informed, regarded a seven days' detention as inevitable and some of them even commenced to unpack the luggage they had previously made ready for removal at the wharf. The unexpected, however, happened for although no official explanation has been forthcoming it is understood that advice was received from Wellington that the influenza patient and contacts were to be landed at Motuihi and that subsequently the Niagara could be berthed and the remainder of the passengers discharged. This course was accordingly followed. It will be interesting to learn why once again the decision of the Department's officer on the spot was over-ruled with a possibility of the country being exposed to a repetition of the influenza epidemic. The Department perhaps has good cause for its action but in the absence of any pronouncement on the subject the public, as the outcome of bitter and tragical experience, have reason for distrusting decisions arrived at in Wellington. As we have before pointed out, the position is both illogical and farcical. The Department presumably puts a capable and skilled man in charge at Auckland yet first Dr. Frengley's decisions are vetoed and now the instructions of another official are countermanded. Either it is that the Minister or his officials are incompetent and the resignations of one or the other should be insisted upon by Cabinet. For our own part we again state that public confidence in the Department can only be restored by the appointment of another Minister of Public Health in place of the Hon. G. W. Russell.