Alarmed Plunket Society Seeks Aid Of M.P.’s

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29220, 2 June 1960, Page 2

Alarmed Plunket Society Seeks Aid Of M.P.’s

‘‘The present critical condition of the Plunket Society” has been brought to the notice of individual members of Parliament in a cyclostvled letter from the society’s Dominion president (Mrs Jocelyn M. Ryburn, of Dunedin).

For a number of years the society has experienced increasing difficulties because of differences of opinion with the Department of Health, she says in the letter.

“These differences have arisen largely from the fact that since the beginning of the Second World War there has been a great Increase in the Public Health Nursing Service, and the department has consequently entered into competition with the society in infant welfare work,” she says. At first, the department wished its nurses to take over the work in "isolated areas”; next, the term “rural areas” was used; “and now we are told that Plunket work should be confined to ‘cities and other densely-populated areas’." The Plunket Society could not continue to function if its work was confined to “cities and other densely-populated areas,” according to Mrs Ryburn. “It is inconceivable that people in such areas would continue to maintain an infant welfare service by voluntary effort if their neighbours were receiving a State service that required no effort by the individual,” she says. “Furthermore, the Karitane hospitals could not be maintained

without the generous support of the country branches of the Plunket Society.” Specialised Service Mrs Ryburn says that the department offers “only a nursing service.” On the other hand, the Plunket Society, in addition to its specialised pediatric nursing service, “mobilises the young parents of the community and has a powerful weapon for preventive medicine in its Plunket committees and mothers’ clubs.” This personal participation is claimed to be largely responsible for the fact that nearly 90 per cent, of New Zealand mothers ask for the services of Plunket nurses. “We would stress that the issues between the department and the society are ideological, not financial. The society gives £lBO,OOO every year to the nation, as well as countless gifts in kind and labour. In cost to the Government, a Plunket nurse is much less than half as expensive as a departmental nurse. “We stand or fall on the implementation of the Finlay report,” Mrs Ryburn concludes.