PLUNKET WORK

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 82, 3 October 1929, Page 11

PLUNKET WORK

INTERIM COHERENCE

ADDRESS BY DR. DERRICK

Lady Hbsking" presided over tlie annual interim conference of the.Plunket Society, held-"at the society's rooms, Kent terrace, to-day. After she bad | welcomed the delegates; thn annual report was read by Mrs. J. A. Johnstone, and the financial statement by Miss Hoddinott, and then the medical director of the society (Dr. T. Derrick) ad-, dressed the members. -With Sir Truby' King, he said, he had recently spent a month in Sydney. They had both spent some time at the Australasian Medical Conference, *£iich was being held there at that time, and had been particularly interested in the very important discussion . led by Dr. Jellett. Although he had only heard some of the papers, Dr. Jellett }s paper was, he thought, the most important one of yie conference. Not all the delegates were by any means. in- agreement with Dr. Jellett's views on. maternal mortality, but he and Sir Truby King had agreed with him entirely, • and had been able to verify. and support his statements and figures on several .occasions. Dr. •Jellett'had. taken, up the. whole question, of " maternal mortality. It was contended that with-; adequate antenatal care and. . competent midwiveg there was no need to over, tax the busy medical practitioner with'a case of normal birth. . The Plunket Society pursued a policy of opening up ante-natal clinics, for if maternal mortality statistics were to be put on the right basis, ante-natal care- was a -very important feature of the case. Several new clinics had recently been established, and it was hoped' that. New Plymouth, Palmerston North, and Gisborne would shortly follow suit. It was not, however, intended to take from the medical profession something which it already had, but to assist it in pulling down the maternal mortality rate. He had found that the doctors were mostly in agreement, with the society and ready to co-operate with it.

Dr. Derrick also referred to work among the older children. The sot ciety might have some difficulties to face in this respect, but this particular campaign of education should be carried on until the children of school age were class Al instead of C 3, to use a wartime expression. The work of the society should not finish when the child was 15 or 18 months old. He would mention also the need for an increase in the society's staff, which, financially, might prove a difficult problem, but he believed that the public would give the necessary support. Begarding the decrease in the number of visits paid to the homes of the mothers by the nurses, he would like to sound a note of warning. Without in any way criticising the figures, he wished to point out that the work of the nurses was an educational work, and they could not adequately educate the mothers unless, they visited the -. homes and saw there tor themselves the conditions there. As far. as he personally was concerned, said. Dr. Derrick, he had come, into the work just .uf ter the annual conference, and as" he worked to gam a bird's-eye view of the movement he felt he must .travel through both Islands and meet the various committees. This he had been doing before he left for Australia, and no man could have been more kindly received than he had. He had felt, too, that perhaps there was a certain gap to be bridged between the medical profession and the society, and so ho had. called on the doctors individually as far as possible and talked to-.them. In almost-every instance the doctors had received him kindly, and among, the several hundreds of conversations he had held he had to some extent been able to modify their views, explaining, for instance, that the clinics were there to assist the doctors and not to interfere in any way. Dr. Derrick stated that ho hoped shortly to have a circular dealing with the pre-school child sent to all branches. Ho also referred to the refresher course for midwives which was' to be held in Dunedin in ten days' time. This course was free, and lasted ono month. A very extonsive programme had been planned, and it was hoped to produce very solid results, and to co ground the midwives in the fundamentals of the care of tho baby and tho mother that they would greatly help to reduce tho maternal mortality and near-natal mortality Tates. At present the nearnatal mortality rato, or death in the first month of life, was 25 per 1000, or half of the near-natal mortality rate of Amsterdam.

Mrs. Cracroft Wilson (Ohristchurch) moved the adoption of tho report, which she described as "brimful of information." They owed a debt of gratitude to tho compilers of both report and bal-ance-sheet.

Mrs. Hoggard (Lower Hutt) also spoke of the excellence) of the report and the many purposes which it served, and the document was adopted unanimously.

Tho following were pmsent at the meeting:—Mosdames J. A. Johnstone, Jos. M' George, T. K. Sidey, G. Gallow.'.y (Dunedin), Parkes (Auckland), Cracroft Wilson, Cecil Wood (Christchurch), Lady Hosking, Miss Barnett, Mrs. Hoggard, Mrs. Tythe Brown, Miss E. Ward (Wellington), Mesdames Crawford (Wanganui),' W. A. Moore, Herdman (Timaru), Bullock, Martin (Mas-, terton), Gilmour, Chrisp (Lyttelton), Miss Elsie Williams (Hastings), Miss Dunsford , (Westport), Mesdames Harding (Dargaville), Tompkins (Hamilton), Hoggard (Lower Hutt), Leckie (Upper Hutt), Hector Smith (Napier), Sunderland (Hastings), Kirk, Hansford Johnston (Petone); Dr. Derrick (Medical Director), and Miss Hoddinott (administrative secretary). Apologies were received from Sir Truby King, who much regretted his inability to be present, and from representatives of the Wa-i para, Auckland, Nelson, New Plymouth, Palmorston North, and Napier branches. . '