CLUBFOOT SHOULD BE CURED

Te Ao Hou, November 1957, Page 63

CLUBFOOT SHOULD BE CURED A STATEMENT that clubfoot was noticeably more prevalent among the Maori prople than among the European was made recently by Mr H. C. Rishworth, the retiring President of the Northland sub-centre of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Crippled Children's Society. Of 114 cases of clubfoot known to the Northland sub-centre on the records, 96 were Maori (66 boys and 30 girls). This is probably typical for the whole of New Zealand. A survey by the Department of Health in 1956 suggested that a Maori child might be almost nine times as likely to have clubfoot than a European child. Dr H. B. Turbott, the Deputy Director-General of Health feels that the greater prevalence of clubfoot in the Maori statistics, may be attributed to the fact that with the European child, clubfoot is detected at birth or very soon after and usually treatment is begun at once. By the time the child is of school age, it no longer has a clubfoot and of course not recorded as a crippled child. Many Maori parents do not realise that clubfoot can be cured if it is detected and attention given to it at an early age, and are reluctant to allow the child to be operated on. The treatment consists of a series of operations to straighten the tendons of the foot followed by physiotherapy. If the rate of clubfoot among the Maori is to be reduced, stated Dr Turbott, the parents of a child born with a clubfoot, should allow the child to undergo treatment immediately the deformity is detected. There is no evidence for any suggestion that the disease is due to housing or any other social condition.