MATERNITY BENEFIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 80, 5 April 1939, Page 10

MATERNITY BENEFIT.

Kuril,-- (lie ten ycar.s l!127-1().')fl (he of women eonh'ned in ]ni!i!ic i,r registered privnto Im-pital-, (in,[ including (Hie-hed nialei-ni!y lioinrs) increased IVdiu uS.fi!) to 51.7.") jicM , rent. Maternity !)eni'ii;> under the Social Security Am will be payal.'le to all niothevs cniilined in these Jio.-J)ital--, and to the decreasing percentile con li 11; (t in their own homes. According lo .-talenien! - made ye-terday il will not be payable to mothers cmilined in one-bed, nn registered niafernity homes, and the nurses the-e are very naturally proleslin--. Jt must be borne in mind that bolh from flic medical and Ihe economic point of view the properly-equipped hospital has clear advantages, A\liich are especially iniporhuit in ;i counlry concerned \\ith reilTiciiiL;- its maternal mortality rate. These advantages were stressed by the .Maternity Service- Committee last year. But there is another ''actor, of immediaie, j lioimli not of permanent, impcriance. The commit fee found, in Auckland, a need for more private maternity hospitals, and said the provision of them should lie encouraged. Tt also -' i• < -11 •_; ly recomme)i(|ed the building of a new and larger St. Ilidens Hospital. I'ntil both 1.'.-f-e nei'd- are met the one-bed iiiatcrnity li'iines mu-t, it wiMild seem, continue lo « - ive ii u-eliti, indeed an indispensable, service. While they arc that service their cx'-iiii'.n from [!,,. operation of the maternify benefit .-cheinf will not be ca.-y to justify.