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Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) - Report of the Special Committee of the Board of Health appointed by - the Hon. Minister of Health by Committee Of The Board Of Health
page 38 of 104 (36%)
chief, stated that he did not favour these suggestions. A certificate of
death, he said, cannot be regarded as confidential, as the information
contained therein is recorded in the death entry, which may be inspected
by the public, and of which a copy may be obtained by any applicant. In
reply to questions, however, he stated that the law could no doubt be
altered so as to make the death-certificate confidential, the
information to be given up only on an order from a Court of justice.
Apart from the fact that the insurance companies might object, he did
not see any objection from the public point of view.

Mr. Malcolm Fraser, the Government Statistician, said that there was
considerable division of opinion on this question at the British Empire
Statistical Conference held in London in 1920, when statisticians from
all parts of the Empire were present. It was generally agreed that the
system was good theoretically, but some doubt was expressed whether in
practice there would be as much improvement as was expected, since the
system would depend entirely on the medical attendant strictly complying
therewith and disclosing the true cause of death in every case. Any
system of confidential information always had that failing. The witness
thought the register must be open for persons having a right to call for
copies of entries. In dealing with insurance claims at death the truth
or otherwise of the statement in the proposal form was important, and
might require verification by inspection of the death entry. At the
Conference Dr. Stevenson, the Statistician to the Registrar-General of
the United Kingdom, was very pronounced in his advocacy of the
confidential form of certificate. The Conference passed the following
resolutions: "(1.) That the present system of open certification tends
to prevent candid statements of the causes of death, and thus introduces
a systematic error into death statistics. (2.) That the error would be
eliminated by a system of confidential certification."
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