KEY POINTS:
Stuck in bed with a tummy bug? It might pay to check district bylaws before you check out the latest best-selling novels from the local library.
The Herald on Sunday has learned that under archaic local body regulations, people with some common ailments might not be welcome in
their local public library.
Bylaws in several regions, including the Far North, Whakatane, Waitomo, Napier, Hastings and New Plymouth, ban anyone with a communicable disease from using libraries.
And in Waitakere and Porirua, borrowers cannot take items (books, magazines, maps, CDs, periodicals, photographs, photocopies, newspapers, DVDs or videos) to give to someone with a communicable disease.
If they do, they have to notify public health officials, who are then obliged to disinfect the "diseased" item before returning them to the library.
However the definition of what constitutes a communicable disease appears to be highly debatable.
The Ministry of Health defines it as any illness that can be passed from one person to another. Examples include the common cold, measles, chicken pox, mumps, hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections.
John Holmes, Otago Medical Officer of Health and a senior clinical lecturer at the Dunedin School of Medicine, said the bylaws were based on Section 80 of the Health Act 1956, which required anyone suffering from an infectious disease to take steps to prevent it spreading to other people.
He noted it was highly unlikely librarians would be able to tell if anyone had a communicable disease, and said the regulations appeared to be there "because they were there, not because they were of any value".
The wording of the act was taken directly from the Health Act of 1930, which in turn was based on laws drawn up in 1900, he said. The act contained a list of 55 infectious diseases, ranging from campylobacter, influenza and salmonella to Aids, head lice and scabies.
Porirua City Council spokeswoman Barbara Bercic said its librarians would use definitions as outlined in the act.
Theoretically that meant that any one of the estimated 200,000 New Zealanders who suffer from food poisoning each year, or possibly a child with measles, could be breaching regulations and liable to a fine of up to $5000, just for borrowing a book.
Librarians were not particularly familiar with the regulations, she said. "I imagine in those sort of cases they are allowed to use their discretion."
A spokeswoman for the Human Rights Commission said the act sought to prevent epidemics of specific diseases such as TB and venereal disease.
Legally it was the duty of the Governor-General to declare any disease "communicable".
Laws were currently being updated to include "modern" illnesses such as Sars and bird flu as communicable diseases, she said.
While anyone who was banned from a library because of an illness could complain to the commission, she said, legally it would be argued it had been done for public health reasons.