Report of the Department of Health / New Zealand.

  • New Zealand. Department of Health.
Date:
[1960]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the Department of Health / New Zealand. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/164 (page 10)
    Welfare Services The rate of subsidy having been raised to 100 per cent, hospital and home accommodation for the aged by religious and welfare organisations is expected to increase. Dr Dempster discusses the need for standards of assessment of future proposals for accommodation of the aged. An increasing development of domiciliary occupational therapy for the aged is desirable to prolong their independence. National Health Institute The report from Dr J. D. Manning, Director of the National Health Institute, illustrates the increasing confidence being placed by the hospital world and by the public health services generally in the invaluable work of this Institute, and in particular the contributions of Dr Manning himself, Dr H. T. Knights, Epidemiologist, and Dr W. Hamilton, Virolo¬ gist. It is most gratifying to note the cooperation from hospitals and their desire to become more acquainted with the difficulties of cross-infection and the techniques to combat it. The work done on cross-infection in hospitals is highly commendable. This relatively new establishment in health services is rapidly making a place for itself through the technical acumen and industry of its personnel. There can be no doubt that this Institute will play a more and more important part in the preventive field of health and will demand more financial support in its further development if New Zealand wishes to relate its expenditure to prevention rather than cure. In this modern age the increasing hazards in occupational health have received attention and the appointment of Dr F. H. King to this Institute will further the efficacy of the occupational health work of the Public Health Division. Protection from Ionising Radiations Radioactive fall-out is being monitored through the Dominion X-ray and Radium Laboratory of the Department. A level for “threshold of interest” has been set at 1 per cent of the recommended safe limit for continuous breathing of the population of a radioactive-contaminated atmosphere. All tests to date fall below this level. Milk samples are also being analysed from seven widely separated centres to indicate the likely average uptake of strontium 90. * Maori Health There has been a new statistical appraisal of Maori compared with European health in New Zealand. A separate monograph is being published on this subject, but reference is made to the differences in Mr Gardiner’s report on medical statistics. Dropping crude mortality rates and using age-adjusted rates there shows up a very much higher overall mortality in the Maori. Epidemic, respiratory, and gastro-intestinal diseases have their share in this result, but it appears that the Maori is much more susceptible than the Euro¬ pean to death from cancer, diabetes, cerebral vascular lesions, heart disease, and chronic form of nephritis. The lung cancer rate among Maori women would be among the world’s highest in this sex.