HEALTH OF CHILDREN.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 August 1921, Page 4

HEALTH OF CHILDREN.

LARGE NUMBER IN HOSPITAL WHO IS TO BLAME? “That the board ask the medical superintendent to report on the cause of the unusually large number of children at present in hospital,” was a motion proposed by the chairman of the Taranaki Hospital Board (Mr. M. Fraser) at yesterday’s meeting. The health authorities had told them, said Mr. Fraser, that the number of patients in hospital was an index to the sanitary condition of the district. During June the number of patients in the New Plymouth Hospital was 115, of whom 50, or nearly half, were children. Last month the figures were 92 and 41 respectively. The board had to provide room (for the patients’ needs, and it vu very unfair that they should be kept in the dark as to the causes of these cases, and as to what districts the eases came from, whether from the town or the country. Tn the medical report he noticed that four cases of enteric fever (one, of which had proved fatal), and twelve of scarlet fever had been admitted to hospital during the month. It was time the board expressed an opinion on the matter. Mr. Sutherland seconded.

Mr. O’Brien said that it was frequently maintained that the -farming community was chiefly responsible for thfc outbreak of these infectious diseases. This he objected to. In the district around Opunake, which he represented, he knew of no cowshed that was not properly concreted and had not proper sanitary arrangements.

Mr. Capper expressed the opinion that the trouble did not lie in the milking shed so much as in the dirty way of milking. From his experience as chairman of school committees, Mr. Vickers was satisfied that a lot of the trouble was caused by the bad provision for drinking water in both town and country schools. The filth and accumulation in some school tanks were beyond description. There was not a tank put up by the Education Board that had proper sluicing facilities.

Mr. Halcombe suggested that the Hospital Board should interview the Education Board on the matter, but the chairman said they must first await the medical superintendent’s report to see where the trouble lay.

The chairman’s motion was then carried unanimously.