Maori Hygiene

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 141, 5 September 1927, Page 8

Maori Hygiene

Sacrificed for Centralisation

Removal of Service to Wellington

CENTRALISATION carried to excess,” is the opinion voiced locally on the decision of the Health Department to transfer the local headquarters of the Maori hygiene service to Wellington.

'T'HIS, it is said, will mean tlie transfer of two capable and very experienced officers who are performing excellent service in the large Maori districts of which Auckland is the natural centre, and whose departure, to all practical purposes, will mean the closing down of the Auckland office.

“During the past 15 or 20 years good work has been done in preventing disease by specialised attention to sanitation and hygiene in the Maori villages,’’ said Mr. G. Graham, a wellknown authority on Maori affairs, and a member of the Akarana Maori Association. MAORI CO-OPERATION The officers connected with the service have also interested representative members of the Maori race in the work, and throughout tlie Auckland Health District, which takes in from the North Cape to the Southern King Country, and includes the Bay of Plenty, East Cape and Taranaki districts, local councils and village committees are co-operating with the department in this service. In this district are approximately ,25,000 to 40,000 Maoris. They are scattered throughout a large district, are difficult to get at, and a strong prejudice in the past against “pakelia” medicine and hospitals has not made the task easier. “Thanks, however, to the valuable co-operation of many of the Maori leaders, these obstacles are gradually being surmounted,” said Mr. Graham. PERSONAL CONTACT “The system was working smoothly,” lie said. “Why make a change at this stage.” The natives were in the habit of freely resorting to the hygiene department, and the officers concerned had gained through personal contact the confidence of the natives, without which little could be accomplished. With the closing down of the department that personal contact —the work of years— would be

ruthlessly sacrificed in exchange for the problematic advantages of centralisation.

It is said that the Director of Native Hygiene, Dr. E. P. Ellison, who succeeded Dr. Buck, is to be stationed at Wellington, and that the change

would only mean the transfer of two officers attached to that division. It is also stated that matters affecting native health would be dealt with by the Auckland Health Office, which was responsible for the public health of the district. “The natives feel that this does not meet the case,” said Mr. Graham. The Akarana Association wired its protest to the Minister of Native Affairs and asked that an officer be sent Jo Auckland to confer with the association.

Instead of complying with the request the Minister referred the protest to the Health Department and so far nothing had been done.