In a small, modern brick building in the shadow of Victoria’s Health department a handful of. doctors, specialists in infectious diseases since their early post-graduate days, are beginning to relax a little.
THEY are winning their war against tuberculosis.
The number of Victorian deaths is dropping each year and there is bright hope that in the future the disease will claim as few patients as diphtheria or scarlet fever.
It has been a hard fight, a never-ending struggle against a dangerous, lurking enemy which has brought misery, suffering, poverty and death to thousands.
At the turn of the century the annual death toll in Victoria from tuberculosis exceeded 2000. In 1951 it, was reduced to 407.
But the doctors fighting the disease are not letting up. The fight will continue until the sanatoria are empty.
This table of postwar deaths in Victoria tells its own convincing story: —
1946 – 711
1947 – 677
1948 – 641
1949 – 587
1950 – 432
1951 – 407
1952 – Figures not yet available from the Government statist, but, they are expected to be lower than the previous year.
New drugs, increased hospital facilities, earlier diagnosis (through better facilities, including the mass chest X-ray survey) and a public awareness of the disease have all contributed o the steady decline in the death rate.
SPONSORED by the Chifley Government in 1948, the National Tuberculosis Campaign has been the greatest single contributing factor in combating the disease.
The campaign followed an extensive survey and report by the Commonwealth Director of Tuberculosis . (Dr. H. W. Wunderly), and allowed each.
Hundreds of windows replace bricks for walls of this new wing at Greenvale Sanatorium.
By a Staff Correspondent
State Government to be, reimbursed in all expenditure exceeding that spent In 1948, the base year.
Special pensions allowing sufferers to give up work for treatment were granted, and the National Tuberculosis Advisory Council was set up to provide uniformity among the States in their campaigns.
The allowances, payable for the period of active infection, have brought to light more than 1500 cases in Victoria.
People who previously could not afford to give up work are now able to receive treatment, knowing their families will be secure.
Victoria was singularly fortunate to benefit most from the Commonwealth scheme when it was introduced.
It had launched its own campaign two years earlier and allocated £500,000 for building and extensions to sanatoria.
The administrative machinery was ready to turn when Senator McKenna, Minister for Health in the Chifley Government, announced the Commonwealth scheme
in Canberra in November, 1948. While other States were preparing to fight the disease, planning and building new sanatoria and engaging staff, Victoria,
with its foundations secure and rapidly increasing its hospital accommodation, was fighting it hard.
THERE are 1425 beds for tuberculosis sufferers in Victoria and all are occupied.
Sanatoria at Gresswell, Heatherton and Greenvale accommodate 603. Austin Hospital has 97, Fairfield 50 and Henry Watson House, South Yarra, another 40.
Heidelberg Repatriation. Hospital has 400 beds, and 13 chalets attached ‘ to the larger country hospitals care for an additional 235.
Victoria has reason to be proud of its three outer suburban sanatoria — Greenvale, Heatherton and Gresswell.
Set in ideal rural surroundings, where the air is always clear and the gardens full of flowers, they are modern in every detail.
The open balcony construction allows patients to be wheeled into the sunlight so necessary for curing the disease.
And the patients are bright. They have little or no fear for the future for they know they are getting better. They live a full hie at these sanatoria.
There is plenty of entertainment; picture theatres, libraries and occupational therapy to while away their spare time, pre paring them for the life which will, follow their convalescence.
Their friends are never too far away and visit them regularly. .Oversea s architects, specialising in hospital construction, have paid many tributes to these sanatoria during their visits to Victoria.
Workers in an aircraft repair shop line tip to be chest X-rayed.
PUBLIC support for the campaign, particularly in Victoria has broken down the in-founded stigma against the disease and encouraged sufferers , to seek early treatment.
The Victorian Tuberculosis Service asks family doctors to be on the alert for possible cases to inform suspect cases of the scheme and encourage all their patience, to be a rayed;
City and country municipal councils support for the mass X-ray.survey, now costing £150,U00 per year, has given the public a greater confidence in the Federal and State Governments efforts to combat the disease.
in 1951 300,000-Victorians voluntarily submitted themselves to be X-rayed for possible tuberculosis infection.
Last year the figure jumped another 100,000 and this year at least 450,000 are expected to pass through the mobile X-ray bureau as they make their way round the State.
Shortly the survey will be made compulsory for the hundreds of New Australians arriving each month to ensure that these Europeans do not spread the disease in Victoria.
The extensive rehabilitation programme to assist. patients as they are being cured is further, evidence that this campaign goes beyond the curative stage.
Many patients, who, prior to their admission to sanatoria, were working on hard manual jobs are trained in the lighter clerical duties advised for their future.
WHAT of the future ? Will control of the disease ever reach the stage that the millions of pounds now being ploughed into- this campaign can be used in other branches of medical research or developmental projects ?
Doctors fighting this disease are optimistic. They have , high hopes that B.C.G. vaccine, now being used to – immunise school children, will help reduce the incident of the disease in the next generation.
Scandinavian countries, which have the lowest tuberculosis, death rate in the world, have immunised their children for the past 15 years and attribute a great deal of the decline to B.C.G vaccine.
Victorian parents have rallied behind the immunisation campaign. About 95 percent of them have allowed their children to be vaccinated.
This campaign has now been ex tended to all National Service trainees.
It may be another decade before the results are known as most of the children are in the 13 to 17 year age group and the danger period of the dis ease is between 17 and 30.
Director of the Victorian Tuberculosis Bureau (Dr. E. V. Keogh) sums up the future this way: —
“Our task is to get all the infectious cases into hospital and make them non-infectious. In time we hope to hand over the sanatoria, for use as public hospitals.”
VICTORIA can be justly proud of its part in the national campaign . against tuberculosis.
It has stepped up its case-finding programme, increased its hospital facilities and fought the disease vigorously. Short age of finance which has hampered most other health campaigns has been practically non existent in the fight against tuberculosis.
It has been . expensive, but money spent on health is a sound investment.
The health of a nation is still its greatest asset.
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