TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTIVES

Shannon News, 9 November 1926, Page 2

TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTIVES

The Xor tii Canterbury Hospital Board is drawing attention to the present very unsatisfactory condition of affairs with regard to the treatment of consumptives. While the Department of Public Health lias set up public sanatoria for consumptives at Waipukurua and Otaki, 'the various hospital boards through the Dominion arc not relieved of their responsibility of providing for those in their own areas suffering from this disease. Different hospital boards appear to have very different ideas as to tlieir responsibilities in this respect/ with the result that some of the boards have gone to a great amount of trouble and expense'to provide 'the very best accommodation and treatment for these sufferers, but others have done very little in this direction. 'Die North Canterbury Hospital Board has for years specialised in this matter, and has been so successful in its treatment of tuberculosis that people Crum all purls of the Dominion are. flocking to Christchurch for treatment- This is decidedly unfair. Dr. BJackmore, medical director of tuberculosis sanatoria, :iu speaking on this question to the North Canterbury Hospital Board, expressed the opinion that tuberculosis was a national disease, and should be treated nationally. He urged that a tuberculosis board should be set up in each island to deal with cases, and enable them to be allotted to institutions. This is a reasonable argument, and we would like,to see the proposal carried into effect’. Under existing- conditions, patients sometimes fail to get the best treatment, because the hospital board in that particular district have not the facilities at their command to deal with such cases. The results achieved by some of the most up-to-date sanatoria are a fine testimony in their favour, but the same cannot be said for the careless way In which some patients are treated, more especially in the smaller districts, some poor people being subject to inhuman treatment. The question is really too ’big for the individual hospital boards, and should be a national affair, conducted somewhat on the lines suggested by Dr. Blackmorc, who has had a wide experience in this matter, and studied it very closely. There seems no doubt that'by a more rigorous crusade against consumption in this country, and better organised effort in the control of the sanatoria, the disease could be robbed of much of its harmfulness, and be almost wiped out, in/ a eqroparntivelv short time.