T.B. Patients Could Earn Own Living

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 342, 1 May 1928, Page 12

T.B. Patients Could Earn Own Living

Doctor’s Proposal to Hospital Board DIFFICULT PROBLEM “One of the most difficult of all questions connected with tuberculosis—and one for which no general solution has yet bean found—is how to deal with tuberculosis patients after their discharge from sanatoria.” This statement was made by Dr. J. Allan Berry, medical superintendent of the Napier Hospital, in his annual report to the Hawke’s Bay Hospital Board. The main difficulties, he added, were in finding the patients satisfactory employment, and in providing them with suitable living conditions. This problem, continued his report, although much more acute in other countries, was also a problem of considerable proportion in New Zealand. There were many sufferers from tuberculosis who were a distinct menace to the community. Moving among their fellows they carelessly or ignorantly —sometimes even criminally—neglected the necessary rules of hygiene, and might disseminate the disease among those with whom they came in contact.

Still further, they were at a distinct advantage. They could not undertake laborious work, and light work they frequently found exceedingly difficult to obtain. They must overtax their strength v or else do without the abundant nourishment necessary for the maintaining of their resistance to the disease. Some solution must be found whereby the sufferers themselves were enabled to find suitable employment and live under conditions which would help them to combat their own infection. LONDON DOCTORS’ OPINIONS The latest report on the subject was that of Dr. F. N. Kay Menzies, published by the London County Council. The vocational training given in certain sanatoria had its value in occupying the mind of the patient while under treatment. It seemed generally agreed that none of the patients had been able to earn an adequate living outside an institution by means of a new occupation he had been taught as a result of a stay of 12 months or so at a training colony. The working capacity of tuberculous persons whose disease was not arrested was not more than 50 per cent, of that of a normal person. Dr. Menzies said that “under any circumstances a commercial undertaking employing tuberculous employees and paying a wage adequate for their maintenance cannot be run without considerable financial loss, and must be subsidised in some way.” This statement was controverted by Dr. P. C. Varrier-Jones, who pointed out that the experience at Pap worth did not bear this out. “Papworth industries are a commercial undertaking ! employing tuberculous employees and paying a wage adequate for their main- ' tenance, and the average net loss per employee per annum, calculated over eight years, is not more than £ 3 cr £4. “If this is considered serious financial loss there is only this to be said,” ho goes on. “How much greater would the cost be if those persons left Papworth, spread the disease, broke down and had to be readmitted for a further period of sanatorium treatment? In point of fact, if one of them were readmitted for a fortnight to a sanatorium it would cost more than to employ him in the settlement for a year; and if he infected any healthy person as well, the cost of not keeping him in a settlement would become enormous. VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS “In these calculations no charge in respect of capital is included. If it were, however, the cost per employee would be greatly' reduced. It is therefore reasonable to con. l nd t’-ir.t public

bodies would find an investment in village settlements most valuable; for though it would yield no interest it would save them large sums in sanatorium charges on readmitted cases and pay dividends in happiness to their beneficiaries.” This latter point was thought to be of some importance by Dr. Berry, though it could not be brought, unfortunately, in the scale of pounds, shillings and pence. “At the present time it costs the Hawke’s Bay Hospital Board £ 1,800 per annum for the maintenance of patients in sanatoria,” continued Dr. Berry. “Not all these patients, of course, would be capable of doing even light work, but if the scheme I am proposing were adopted the number of readmissions would probably fall very considerably. “I feel that to build dwellings on the flat area that will be left at Parke Island when the quarry is complete, and to provide these patients -with work in cultivating a vegetable garden and in running a poultry farm, would ultimately mean a financial saving to the board, apart from the other advantages mentioned by Dr. Varrier- in the last part of his letter. Not only could cripples from tuberculosis be given employment, but also cripples due to other causes. “My reason for bringing forward this subject is that now the affairs of the Hospital and Harbour Boards are so interlocked in the question of rock, it seems likely that an arrangement could be arrived at whereby both local bodies would benefit considerably, and perhaps more than incidentally the chronic sufferers from tuberculosis.” The question will be dealt with at the next meeting of the board.