The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 1917. THE TAIHAPE HOSPITAL.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 19 January 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 1917. THE TAIHAPE HOSPITAL.

(With which is incorporated The Tal hape Post and Waimarino News).

Respecting the health needs of this country mere j 8 no opinion we w.ouicl value more than that or' Dr. Valintine, die Inspector-General of Hospitals. Hie proposals tor lue erection or an infectious disease isolation ward at Taihape have been submitted for his approval. He minks an annex, connected by corridor", containing two oxieued rooms is all that is necessary, but should that view not be considered equal to requirements the next best thing is to erect a detached infectious disease hospital on the sice approved by the District Health Officer. As to the actual requirements we must concede that the District Health Officer will be far better able to judge than tlie Inspector, as he has an intimate knowledge of the district and the population the hospital will have to serve. His views are formed by the rapid changing conditions, while those of the Inspector will be to some extent formed upon what did obtain at sometime in the past. From the wording of his report it seems that, like many other people, he has not fully realised the rapid growth of settlement in the country, nor of that in the towns. If one were to tell him that Taihape is a more populous centre than Marton, he would very likely have doubts about his informant's knowledge or veracity. The District Inspector's annual report discloses that during the past year there were a total of eighty-one cases of diphtheria. Sixty of these cases at least it would have been criminal to have taken a long train journey to Wanganui. That means fully one case |,cr week throughout the year if increasing population does not provide a j greater number of cases in the near future, it is not likely that a hospital is to be constructed with a capacity For bare present needs. There are people who still fail to realise that Taihape, by purely natural circumstances, is destined to be the centre of an enormous producing population. Diphtheria is the infectious scourge with which the district seems to be most aiVlicled, and it is to be hoped : 'uL n ither parsimony or war conditions will be allowed to operate against m«,st thorough and ample provision being made to prevent it getj ting beyond an averagely endemic character. The tirae. has already arrived when Taihape should be constituted a separate hospital district, for to go on taking cases by rail and coach for over one hundred miles is, to say the least, inhuman; and with infec-

tious cases it is distinctly criminal. To go on carrying infection to an ever and rapidly increasing extent on the railways should not be allowed by law, nor tolerated by the travelling" public. Unfortunately, travellers are happily ignorant of the fact that they have with them on the train cases of typhoid, scarlet fever or diphtheria, and so it has gone on until even official conscience is pricked. Forty years ago, had Taihape been the centre it is now, it would have been made a separate district whether its people moved, in that direction or not. Wherever it was possible to avert it they did not carry crushed bodies, broken bones, and infectious diseases on long train journeys. If they had done so many a bushman would have lost a leg- or an arm through the time that elapsed waiting for trains, time taken in travelling and congestion in injured parts. We do not question anything Dr. Valintine has said; it merely seems that he is inclined to underestimate the needs of this district, and in that matter only we trust he will not be led into making mistakes. His hospital knowledge is beyond our questioning, and when -he states that extra provision should be made in a more elastic form for dealing with infectious cases we accept his superior knowledge, but the smallest miscoiv ception of the strain that is going to be put upon whatever is done may prove a very serious matter in the very near future. Cases from as far south as Hunterville should not be trained to Wanganui, and cases from Ohakune, Raetihi, and settlements i right up to Ohura must in the meantime be brought to Taihape. Fortunately, there has been no epidemic of a serious character, but it is for such a contingency that we have to prepare. Instantly cases of typhoid and scarlet fever appear, they should be isolated. They are not diseases that make their appearance evenly over the year; they are of an epidemic character, and while no beds are required for nine months of the year, half-a-dozen may be needed during the other three months. These are all considerations which the InspectorGeneral had well in view. All we urge is the desirability that requirements in the way of accommodation should not be under-estimated.