HEALTH STANDARDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1938, Page 9

HEALTH STANDARDS

POSITION IN NEW ZEALAND

dr mcmillan advocates METHODICAL EFFORT

MEANS OF CUTTING DOWN TOLL OF DISEASE

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day.

Figures supporting his contention that adequate medical attention was not available to a great many of the people of New Zealand were quoted by Di- D. G. McMillan (Government, Dunedin West) when initiating the Ad-dress-in-Reply debate in the House of Representatives last'night. “111-organ-ised, uncontrolled, spasmodic, guerrilla warfare against disease can no longer meet the needs of modern health maintenance,” he said. “A health insurance scheme is long overdue in New Zealand.

“In New Zealand today hundreds of people are receiving virtually no medical care at all,” Dr McMillan said. “Not two people in 10 have their teeth adequately cared for; nor two people in 1000 have one complete medical overhaul each year. Many people are in urgent need of hospital attention and yet they are unable to obtain it. Many others are in need of nursing care in their own homes, and yet they do not receive it.

“Some 30 per cent of the children examined in our public schools are suffering from dental caries. In the majority of cases the lack of treatment is due to the inability to pay for it. Many thousands of people have septic and carious teeth, many have teeth which are unfit for the complete mastication of food, many lack food altogether, thereby opening the door to numerous diseases. Many people suffer from uncorrected visual defects, and here too the lack of correction is due to the inability to pay for it. “It is difficult to dogmatise about the incidence of disease in New Zealand, because we have but few illness statistics. We can, however, draw some conclusions from consideration of New Zealand’s mortality statistics. We find that 31 per cent of deaths occur before 50 years of age. We still lose about 100 mothers every year in child-birth over 700 babies every year before they reach the first birthday, and some 500 before they are a month old. “Many of the deaths from chest diseases could be prevented if we had an adequate service. Heart disease kills twice as many people as cancer, and yet it is a well-known fact that heart disease is caused very often by preventible diseases such as rheumatic fever, diptheria and scarlet fever. With a national service these diseases would be followed to their source and steps taken to eradicate them.” It was possible, Dr McMillan said, that hospital statistics gave the idea of the toll of disease upon the people. Every year 100,000 people were admitted as in-patients in the public hospitals and their period of stay exceeded 2,000,000 working days. Another 100,000 were treated as out-patients. Others were treated in private hospitals and an infinitely large number were treated in their own homes.