SICKNESS AMONGST MAORIS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 305, 19 May 1911, Page 7

SICKNESS AMONGST MAORIS

STAFF OF NURSES TO BE APPOINTED. 'THE CURSE OF THE TANGI, At the monthly meeting of the Tiiranaki Hospital and Charitable Aid Board on Wednesday, Dr. T. 11. A. Yalintinc, Chief Health' Officer, announced that Cabinet had approved a new arrangement regarding supervision of sanitation and measures, to combat sickness amongst Maoris. The whole control ot these matters would now be under the Public Health Department, which would enforce measures to safeguard the health of the Natives, the same as it did amongst Pakehas. The department would have control of the annual vote of £3OOO for this purpose, and it was proposed to appoint about seventeen} nurses, who would visit the kaingas, report upon and attend to the sanitation and sickness amongst Maoris, and l strive to educate the Maoris in these directions. Instead of having this branch of the department controlled from Wellington, there would be local control, in the hands of the hospital boards, as boards of health. The department would pay the salaries, etc., of the nurses, but the nurses would be under the control of the hospital boards, to whom they would report and under whose orders they \vould work. He proposed to station one nurse in the combined Stratford, Hawera and Patea districts, where there was a Native population of 1083. In North Taranaki, with a Native population of 2007, two nurses would probably be stationed. Where two nurses were stationed in one district, one should, if possible, be a Maori. The nurses would be directed to encourage and assist any young Maori girls who showed aptitude for nursing. Mr. G. V. Tate, a member of the board, pointed out that an important point that should not be overlooked by the department was the fact that tangis ■were often responsible for the spread ol disease. He knew this from experience. At one time there had been a noticeable frequency of sickness and deaths amongst the Natives at a period when there were several tangis. The tangis generally caused very unsanitary conditions. Another matter that had been noticed wag the fact that the Natives often spent all their money at. the tangis, and then lived for a time on anything they could ge|, This predisposed them to sickness. :Il' the department lioped the new scheme ifljSUto ceed it should consider the advisability of trying to get the tangis shortened. Dr. Valintine replied that he agreed with all Mr. Tate had said. The nurses would have to use their influence to get the tangis shortened. If they could not, the boards, with the assistance of the health officers, should take steps to enforce the shortening of the tangis.

Mr. Tate remarked that he knew of one tnngi at which two Natives who had died of consumption had been kept unburied for the best part of a fortnight. It was hardly possible to approach within a hundred yards of the place where the bodies were. The chairman (Mr. Bellringer), in assuring Dr. Valintine of the board's assistance, said the board would welcome, anything that was for the betterment of the Native race.