No Maternity Beds At Oxford Hospital

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30270, 24 October 1963, Page 10

No Maternity Beds At Oxford Hospital

Oxford Hospital is no longer to have maternity beds, but will be a general hospital. Maternity patients from the area will be admitted either to the Dan-field Hospital or the Rangiora Hospital, the North Canterbury Hospital Board decided yesterday. The Rangkxra, Ellesmere, Waikari, and Akaroa Hospitals will in future be solely maternity hospitals, general patients being catered for only by “holding beds” in which they will be treated in emergency pending transfer to city hospitals. The latter three hospitals are already effectively in this position, but the Rangiora Hospital has had beds in which general patients could be treated for longer periods. These changes were made necessary, the board was told, by its institutions committee as a result of the Obstetrical Regulations, 1963, which were designed to prevent crossinfection between the general and maternity sections of hospitals. Under the regulations, hospitals with both maternity and other cases must either be combined hospitals with completely separate nursing staffs and service facilities tar the two classes of patient, or else maternity hospitals with holding beds. The only hospital of the board outside Christchurch which in future will be a combined hospital will be the Kaikoura Hospital. Cheviot, Darfield, Kaiapoi, Lincoln, and Lyttelton Hosopltals will continue to be purely maternity hospitals as at present. Mr V. J. Corbett said there was room for maternity patients from Oxford at the Darfield and Rangiora Hospitals, so that none of the districts would suffer; in fact, they should get a better ser-

vice. He did not think continued provision for keeping general patients at the Riangiora Hospital was warranted. Admission figures did not prove any necessity for this, while there was no hardship on general grounds in requiring Rangiora patients to go in to Christchurch, where there were in any case much wider facilities. The board’s acting medical superintendent-in-chief (Dr. J. Caimey) said that after the committee had recommended the change he had circularised all deputy medical superintendents in charge of the country hcepitals to tell them of the proposals, but so fair none had complained. “We have no option under Hie Obstetrical Regulations but to make certain changes, and I think we have made the best decision in the circumstances,” he added.