PLUNKET SOCIETY

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25274, 28 August 1947, Page 2

PLUNKET SOCIETY

WORK FOR COMMUNITY

ADDRESS BY DOMINION PRESIDENT

The work and aims of the Plunket Society were outlined yesterday by the Dominion president of the society (Mrs J. Begg) when she spoke at the biennial provincial conference of the Canterbury and Westland area. “The Plunket Society has earned for itself a unique position in this Dominion,” Mrs Begg said. “It is in the main a society of women, mostly wives and mothers, who pass on to other wives and mothers the special education they have received from its services.” Mrs Begg emphasised that the society was not a charitable institution; it was an educational body providing a free service which was, she said, in New Zealand’s educational tradition. There had, at times, been suggestions that the mother should pay for the service she received from the society, but this was contrary to the policy of its founder (Sir Truby King). “In these days of great anxiety for the future, when no one knows what it may hold for the rising generation, our society can play an important part in helping to ensure a strong and healthy body, which in turn helps to ensure a strong and healthy mind, and so make our present babies better able to face life with courage,” said Mrs Begg. She appealed to the younger members of the society’s committees to remain loyal to it. and to come forward and take the place of those who must fall out of its ranks. Speaking about the educational work of the society, Mrs Begg said that more than 100 tra'ined nurses annually were gjven a post-graduate Plunket training at the society’s Dominion training centre. More than 100 Karitane nurses graduated each year from the Karitane hospitals. Also, lectures and demonstrations were given to fifth-year medical students, to home science students, to members of the Junior Red Cross, to pupils of a number of secondary schools, and to many others. “Our response to the many calls for this class of service is only limited by the present worldwide shortage of nurses, which is curtailing the expansion of this service, which is already planned and necessary,” Mrs Begg added.

Pre-School Work. . “Some years ago, realising the gap between the Plunket service and the school medical service, which often resulted in the crystallisation of remediable defects into permanent ones, representatives of the Plunket Society discussed with the Minister of Health a programme for the expansion of its pre-school work, and received his approval. This was not a new step, as the need had been realised by Sir Truby King, and the first pre-school work recorded in our reports was done in Dunedin as far back as 1925. However, expansion was retarded by the depression and then by the war. In spite of this, great strides have been made, and in 1946, 23,722 children received supervision. Remediable defects were early detected, and the mothers referred to their doctors,” Mrs Begg said. In many cases mothers had to be educated to avail themselves of this service, just as in the early days of the society they had had to be educated to accept the service to their babies which was now taken for granted.

The Plunket Society was now in the proud position of having the confidence of the public, and of successive Governments, which had always turned a sympathetic ear to its requests, Mrs Begg continued. “In a vastly changing world, w’here the word democracy has such widely differing interpretations quite foreign to our British conception of the word, we are a bulwark of freedom and the British way of life,” she added. “We are non-political, nonsectarian, drawn from all sections of the community. Our supreme aim is to help the mothers and young children. We are a service by the people, of the people, for the people.”