HEALTH OF THE MAORI

Southland Times, Issue 20081, 19 January 1927, Page 4

HEALTH OF THE MAORI

STEADY IMPROVEMENT SHOWN

SERIOUS EPIDEMICS ABSENT.

BETTER LIVING CONDITIONS.

The health of the Maoris of New Zealand during the past year has been very good, the native people having experienced no serious epidemics in that time, according to Dr. P. H. Buck, director of Maori Hygiene. Most of Dr. Buck’s work is in the North Island, as in the South Island the Maoris, who number only about 2,000, live under conditions practically identical with those of Europeans.

“There has been a steady improvement of the living conditions of the Maoris in the various villages,” said Dr. Buck, “and health problems have been solving themselves to some degree by the individualisation of lands—the breaking up of the communal system and the aggregation of the people altogether in villages. The Maori Health Councils throughout the country have been doing a good deal of work and in many districts, notably Tauranga, Arawa and the King Country, these bodies have been instituting water supplies. The Maoris have been collecting money for these schemes and the Government has helped with subsidies.

“The improvement in the natives’ health in many villages has been due largely to the practical work of the district nurses. Over 20 nurses have been employed in the more populated districts, working under the Department of Health. They go round the villages and lecture to mothers and others, instructing them in infant feeding, invalid cooking, the care of the sick, etc.

“By exercising careful watch over the villages as regards sickness, these nurses have also been able to nip in the bud epidemics in the nature of typhoid, which have been detected in the initial stages, and not allowed to spread. Typhoid fever has been one of the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, of diseases among the Maoris in the past, and in the early days it must have accounted for heavy loss of life. By antityphoid inoculations, however, many districts where the disease was endemic have been almost entirely freed. “Where cases have occurred in these places they have been found to be among those who have missed inoculation, but the disease has no chance of spreading with the control of the nurses and the inspectors of the Department of Health. There was one epidemic last year in the Hawke’s Bay district, the spread of which was largely due to the followers of Ratana, the native prophet, who, owing to their belief in faith healing, did not call in the nurse or doctor to attend their sick. Difficulty has been experienced, also, in getting these people to be inoculated. There was a fair number of cases in this outbreak, but the epidemic was checked by practically the whole province being inoculated.”