Inauguration Of Women’s Hospital

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31772, 31 August 1968, Page 14

Inauguration Of Women’s Hospital

To mark the inauguration of the Christchurch Women’s Hospital, a specialist course has been arranged for next week. Lectures by world authorities will be centred on a symposium entitled, “The infant at risk.”

The lectures will be directed towards a thorough study of the physiological state of the child before, during and after birth. It is an attempt to reduce the dangers to which the child is exposed at this time, and in particular, to prevent brain damage. The inauguration of a women’s hospital will begin a new era in services offered to women by the North Canterbury Hospital Board. St Helens Hospital will be renamed the Christchurch Women’s Hospital and, not long after this, the services involved in the treatment of maternity cases and diseases of women will be under one roof.

Obstetrics was the province of St Helens Hospital, formerly run by the Health Department The Hospital Board took over the hospital on completion of the new wing and the gynaecological department Is being transferred from Princess Margaret Hospital.

Special facilities have also been added for the treatment of certain types of cancer, previously treated at Christchurch Hospital. The delivery suite of the old wing has been remodelled extensively and will become the operating theatre block. A special neonatal unit for the care of the premature and sick newborn children has been functioning for some time.

Among next week’s visitors will be Professor M. E. Avery, who specialises in the care of these very sick newborn children. She is director of the neonatal department at the famous Johns Hopkins University Hospital, in the United States, and is about to take up a post as professor

of pediatrics at McGill University, Montreal. She will lead a distinguished team of pediatricians, including the New Zealander, Professor A. W. Liley, who pioneered transfusions of the child in the mother's womb for R.H. blood incompatibility. Dr E. Burnard, of Crown Street Women's Hospital, Sydney, Professor J. M. Watt and Dr D. S. Malcolm, both from Otago University and Dr R. N. Howie and Dr A. Hunter, of the National Women’s Hospital, will also give papers. The obstetrical team will be led by Professor C. Wood, of Monash University, Melbourne. He is regarded as a world authority on detection of stress in the child while still in the mother’s body. He will be associated with Professor D. Bonham, of the National Women's Hospital, Auckland. Mr R. Zacharin, from the Royal Women’s Hospital, will also be lecturing on specialised surgery of various women’s diseases, including cancer.

A large number of doctors from throughout the country will attend this course of study which will last four days.