VENEREAL CASES.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1919, Page 6

VENEREAL CASES.

SOLDIERS' VIEWPOINT.

DISEASE SHOULD BE MADE

NOTIFIABLE.

At the Returned Soldiers' Conference, in connection with venereal diseases the executive forwarded the following remit: '"That it be a recommendation to tlie Minister for Defence to amend the regulations in reference to the treatment of venereal disease patients, so as to delete the provisions of a primitive character, except such as are justified on the ground of loss of services to the State, or such as to provide for cases where the disease has been intentionally contracted or retained." On this remit the committee had no further recommendation to offer. The report continued: ' The committee recognise the value of the regulations concerning the treatment of V D. cases returning to New Zealand, and commends the Government for its action, but the committe is strongly of opinion that the same or similar regulations should be enforced upon civilian paces of V.D., and to attain this the C.D. Act should he passed into law. The ■ committee wishes to emphasise that tlie soldier, by reason of the compulsion to obey the King's regulations in reference to the notification of V.D., automatically and ultimately comes under the Public Health Department, whereas the civilian V.D. is under no regulation and is a graver menace to the public health than is the soldier. The committee further recommends that the position of V.IX, as above stated, be placed before the council of the British Medical Association, with the idea of securing co-operation in the attempt to have the C.D. Act pasesd into law."

A brief discussion took place on the matter of venereal diseases, and Mr. Luxford (Waikato) expressed the hope that publicity in the most emphatic way would be given to the.returned soldiers' desire to have the venereal diseases problem tacked courageously and legislation passed regarding it. The chairman remarked that wlint was necessarv was insistence on notilicalion. Until the cases were notifiable, how could they be traced? The whole point was not the C.D. Act but the notification.

Mr. Cowles (Mastcrton) moved that the concluding words of the report, "to have the O.D. Act passed into law" he altered to read "to have venereal disea«e« made notifiable." The Rev. Walker (Christohurch) supported both the report and the amendment, which were carried, and the report as amended was adopted.