“REMEMBER THE LIVING”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 350, 10 May 1928, Page 13

“REMEMBER THE LIVING”

T.B. PATIENTS’ DEATHS DIRECTOR’S CRITICISM (Special to THE SUN) CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. “Dr. Valintine asks for a little more patience. Some of these people have been patient unto death, and I think it is time something was done for the living.'* This appeal was made by Dr. G. J. Blackmore, director of tuberculosis institutions under the Hospital Board, when speaking at a luncheon to Canterbury members of Parliament at the sanatorium to-day. "Last year,” he continued, “eleven women died while waiting for admission to the sanatorium, and in the past two years 17 women have died waiting. All the beds are occupied now, and there are 37 women waiting to come in.” It was not correct to say, he continued, that there were more cases of tuberculosis in the South Island, as Dr. Valintine had suggested. The fact was that in the South Island something was done to discover infectious cases. In the North there was no organisation to do this, and if a dispensary were established there, as in Canterbury, the director-general would receive a shock. Dr. Valintine should be in possession of all the information about tuberculosis that any commission could give him. He had been chief health officer for 20 years, and now he asked for a commission to inquire how to deal with tuberculosis. Yet, said Dr. Blackmore, there were 700 or 800 people dying every year of tuberculosis, and the director-general had no policy dealing with it. DR. BLACKMORE RESIGNS RETIRING AT END OF YEAR (Spitial to THE SUN) CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday. Dr. G. J. Blackmore, director of tuberculosis institutions for the North Canterbury Hospital Board, will resign Position as soon as the commission which the Minister of Health proposes to set up to report on consumptive sanatoria has completed its work. “It is simply that I am due to retire," said Dr. Blackmore, this evening. "Probably I should have done so before this, but I desire to see the commission’s work through.” Dr. Blackmore expects to retire at the end of the year