NATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14710, 30 June 1948, Page 5

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN

REMITS FOR ANNUAL CONFERENCE

DISCUSSION BY TAURANGA BRANCH

A number of remits sent forward for consideration by the Dominion Headquarters of the National Council of Women, were discussed at the monthly meeting of the Tauranga branch of the National Council in preparation for the annual conference to be held in Auckland in September.

One of these remits • dealt with the ncsiLon nf rr'Yemitv hosnitMs under Hospital Boards; and the neces-ity for emergen •w an-" 1 temporarily used buildings to be brought into line with the requirements laid down by the Health Department. Mrs R. H. Faulkner, J.P., a member of the Tauranga Hospital Board, was able to supply authentic information regarding the strict supervision carried out with regard to the fulfilment of all the requirements. Accidents would always be a possibility, but the rules of the department were kept without question, she said. A remit sent from Tauranga had been forwarded to the Tauranga branch by the Registered Nurses’ Association, after having been discussed at the Dominion Conference cf the Registered Nurses’ Association. This asked that fees paid for nursing in private homes should be

partly recoverable under Social Security; the present position being that patients nursed in their own homes were not entitled to any assistance. It was agreed to support this at the Conference. In view of the very great difficulty being experienced at the present time in the question of domestic help for mothers who were forced to leave their homes for a period in hospital or maternity home, it was agreed to make an effort to establish some kind of mutual aid scheme. The representatives rf the Council were asked to bring the matter before their own organisations, seeking for names of women willing to take a child into their own homes for a short time, or willing to go into the homes to help, when the mother had to be away. It was felt that this problem could be met in no other way than by women willing to help their sisters in their times of need; domestic help being practically impossible to secure, and when available much too expensive for the average earner’s wage to meet.