HEALTH OF MAORIS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10304, 13 January 1927, Page 3

HEALTH OF MAORIS

STEADY IMPROVEMENT IN LIVING CONDITIONS.

GOOD WORK BY DISTRICT

NURSES

TYPHOID EPIDEMICS NIP BED

IN BUD

(Special to the Times.) AUCKLAND, Jan. 11

Seme views regarding the health ot the Maoris were expressed by Dr P. H. Buck, director of Maori Hygiene. “There has been a steady improvement of the living conditions of the Maoris in various villages,” said Dr Buck, “and health problems have been solving themselves to some degree by the individualisation, of lands, and the breaking up of the communal system and the aggregation of people altogether in villages. Maori Health Councils have been doing a good deal of work and in many districts, notably Tauranga, Arawa and the King Country, these bodies have been instituting water supplies. The Maoris have been collecting money for these schemes, and the’ Government has helped with subsidies. The improvement in the Natives’ health in many villages has been due largely to the' practical work of district nurses. Over- 20 1 nurses have been employed in the more populated districts. Working under the Department of Health they go round the villages and lecture to mothers and cthens, instructing them in infant’ feeding, invalid cocking, the care of the sick, etc. By exercising a careful watch over the' villages as regards sickness these nurses have also been able to nip in the bud epidemics in the nature of typhoid, which have been detected in the initial stages, and not allowed to spread. Typhoid fever has been one of the most dangerous diseases, if not the most dangerous, among Maoris in the past, and in the early days it must have accounted for a heavy loss of life. By anti-typhoid inoculation, however, many districts where the -disease uas endemic have been almost entirely freed. Where cases have occurred in those places they have been found to be among those who have missed inoculation, but the disease lias no chance of spreading with the control of the nurses and the inspectors of the Department of Health.