PREVENTING PLAGUE.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 March 1922, Page 5

PREVENTING PLAGUE.

A v CHARGE OF SLACKNESS SHARP ATTACK ON MINISTER. A DOCTOR SPEAKS OUT. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. A reply to the Hon. C. J. Parr’s statement that he was investigating a charge of slackness in the plague precautions at one port in the Dominion was made to-day by the Auckland district medical officer of health (Dr. McKibbin), who says it refers to the berthing of the Niagara last week. Dr. McKibbin denies any slackness, and says the Minister has been misinformed. As a matter of fact the Niagara was fitted with a complete new set of modern rat guards, and the measures taken were described by the harbormaster as the most complete he had yet seen. “The uninitiated, however,” added the doctor, “might easily assume from a casual inspection of the ship that imperfect care had been taken, because the fore and aft spring hawsers were not guarded. The reason for this is that these lines are close to the ship’s side, and with the rise and fall of the tides the rat guards would buckle. It is also usual for rat guards generally to open occasionally for the same tidal reason. The practice invariably adopted, and which was adopted with the Niagara, is to block the bits (the opening through which the hawser passes), and to apply tarred canvas at the ship end; no rat will pass over a greased and tarred surface. Considering that the height of the Niagara is some thirty to forty feet from the wharf, I fail to see how the Minister’s informant satisfied himself that the ropes had not been tarred. At a matter of fact, on fairly close observance it might often appear that there is no tax on the canvas surrounding such ropes, but the passing of a finger over them soon reveals its presence.”

The doctor expressed strong indignation at the Minister’s action in discrediting every medical officer in the Dominion by statements in the Press before referring such complaints to the officer concerned. He says that until New Zealand possesses a local government board, independent of political influence, and a provincial council in Auckland to co-ordinate all country and local authorities throughout the province, and until the Auckland City Council has its own medical officer of health, and the Auckland Provincial Council has its own county medical officer of health, it will be difficult enough with any Minister for successful work to be undertaken. At present the department is in a state of chaos, engendered by fierce political action and scaremongering, and even if the best county medical officer of health in England held office in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland, he could not satisfy the demands made on him.