FIGHTING TUBERCULOSIS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 617, 20 March 1929, Page 16

FIGHTING TUBERCULOSIS

DISPENSARY IN CITY? DOCTOR’S RECOMMENDATION A recommendation that a tuberculosis dispensary should be established In Auckland has met with approval from members of the Auckland Hospital Board. Consideration of the recommendation was held over by the board yesterday afternoon, after it had read a long report on the subject by Dr. A. X. McKelvey. Dr. McKelvey visited the dispensary in Christchurch. He thought that the dispensary should be free, and that everyone in the board’s district should be entitled to examination, when recommended by a doctor. Dr. McKelvey revealed in his report the interesting fact that treatment actually at the Christchurch dispensary was not compulsory. Patients could be treated at home. The dispensary confirmed the diagnosis of a doctor. As an educational centre, the Christchurch dispensary was valuable. Fees were charged private patients and were paid to the Hospital Board. Costs of the work at the dispensary were reasonable. Dr. McKelvey thought that a suite of rooms set aside in the administrative block at the hospital, when it was built, would make a suitable dispensary. There would be no objection by patients to attending the dispensary if it were in the hospital. Dr. McKelvey thought that a house should be made available for use as a dispensary in the meantime. Should the dispensary be near the hospital it would be in convenient touch with X-ray work in the hospital. “A trained nurse should be made a whole-time officer,” Dr. McKelvey said. “Treatment should be available for people who are not able to afford private doctors.” Several members praised the comprehensive nature of the report. Mr. W. Wallace, chairman of the board, thought that Auckland should have a tuberculosis dispensary. While he was not prepared to say if tuberculosis was proportionately mo,re prevalent in the South Island than in the North Island, he said that the disease was dealt with more fully in Christchurch than anywhere else in New Zealand.