POLITICAL NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 145, 6 November 1912, Page 4

POLITICAL NOTES.

HOSPITAL CONTRIBUTIONS. By Telegraph—Own Correspondent. Wellington, Last night. As compared with last year, reports the Inspector-General in his annual state* ment on the subject of hospitals and charitable aid, there has been a decrease of £3(7/ in voluntary contributions. Prior to 1885, when the hospitals were maintained 'by voluntary contributions and Government subsidy, one-ninth of our total expenditure was met by voluntary contributions. To-day this proportion lias fallen to one-fifteenth. There has, he goes on to say, been a gradual increase in the payments by persons relieved from £61,983 in 1910-11 to £04,138 in 1911-12. TUBERCULOSIS. In 1911, reports the Chief Health Officer, 738 persons died from some form or other of tuberculous disease, the mortality rate being 7.27 per 10,000, the lowest recorded. Though this is eminently satisfactory, he adds that it is to be hoped that during the ensuing year hospital'boards and other publit and private authorities will initiate a more vigorous campaign against thin disease. VACCINATION. Early in this year, states the Chief Health Officer in his annual report, a report was submitted to the effect that the vaccination law was practically a' dead letter in the Dominion. Though the births were 26,354, only 1078 vaccinations were whereas the exemption certificates numbered 6754. In view of our increasing trade with the East, he says, this neglect on the part of parents to have their children vaccinated becomes all the more serious. The Dominion has had one or two warnings of the danger that it is incurring. It will not always be possible to discover smallpox patients before they land in the country. ""CANCER. Those who may care to pursue the statistics attached to this report, says the Health Officer, will note with concern' the gradual increase in the mortality rate from this disease, which was the cause last year of no fewer than 809 deaths, or a mortality rate of 7.97, the highest hitherto recorded in New Zealand. NATIVE HEALTH. ' Referring in his annual report to th# outbreaks of infectious diseases amongst the natives, the Chief Health Officer, in his annual report, says that many natives have died, mostly, he thinks,* from the neglect of proper treatment at the outset. "And here," he continues, "I would like to say a word'of commendation of those brave and noble women sent out by the Department to assist in nursing the natives. Apart from the ordinary risks of their profession, they take their lives in their hands and put up with hardships and discomfort which only one who travels the same roads and crosses the same rivers can realise; and all this they do ungrudgingly and with a good moral effect on the natives, whom they are continually schooling in the necessity and practise -of sanitation. Were there more or these nurses avail- • able, I think the course of the fever epidemic among the natives would b« checked, if not staved.''' ■■