Rotary move to counter rising infant mortality

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32640, 23 June 1971, Page 24

Rotary move to counter rising infant mortality

(Neto Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, June 21.

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Rotary movement in New Zealand, 2700 Rotarians of district 292 have agreed to establish a national children’s health research foundation, which will provide finance for a research chair in child health within the University of Auckland School of Medicine.

The subsequent development of a national children’s hospital in Auckland is envisaged. The district governor, Mr P. Rigg, of Orewa, said that because of the country’s declining standards of child health, a research chair in Auckland would be a worthwhile contribution to (he community. ' Rotary expects to raise the required $400,000 by November this year. District 292 consists of 44 clubs in the Auckland pro-

vincial area from Tuakau north, and clubs in Lautoka, Nandi, Noumea, Suva, and Nukualofa.

An Auckland consulting children’s physician, Dr R. H. Caughey, said that after leading the world with the lowest infant mortality rate, New Zealand had slipped to sixth place in recent years.

On its Maori infant mortality rate, New Zealand has been relegated to twenty-seventh place, comparable with Hong Kong, he said.

New Zealand’s mortality rate for children between one month and one year old was now the highest for developed countries; and the mortality rate for children in the one-to-four-years age group was more than double the Swedish rate, and almost double the rate in Denmark, England or Wales, said Dr Caughey. MANY ILLNESSES Although mortality figures were an important index of the health services of a country, he said, they failed to indicate that almost 60,000 children were admitted to public hospitals in New Zealand each year.

“Nor do they give any idea of the high frequency of congenital and acquired disorders, or the large numbers of children permanently crippled with muscular, brain, bone, heart, lung, bowel, kidney, intellectual, emotional or other disorders,” he said. “These all require continued support and treatment until, in many instances, they become a burden to themselves and to society. “This record of children’s health in New Zealand will surprise many, but it is a true picture of a problem that is rapidly compounding," he said. FURTHER ASPECT

Deciding on the project, Rotary considered the heavy influx of Polynesians to New Zealand and to the Auckland province in particular. According to Dr . Caughey. because the deathrate of Maori and other Polynesian infants and children is double that of Europeans, this influx will have a further detrimental effect on the health of the children of New Zealand.

New Zealand was the only developed country in the world without a hospital specifically planned tp meet the needs of children, he said.

The district jubilee committee had found that half of all the children in the non-surg-ical paediatric wards at Auckland Hospital on March 31, 1971, were non-European and that these children stayed, on average, twice as long in hospital as European children.

The children’s foundation project follows similar ventures initiated by Rotary in New Zealand.

In 1934, the movement de-

tided to make the mental and psychological condition of crippled children a major activity, a decision from which grew the New Zealand Crippled Children Society.

The need for more facilities to safeguard women’s health led to Rotary founding, in 1946, a postgraduate chair of obstetrics and gynaecology which, in turn, led to the building of the National Women’s Hospital in Auckland.

In its relatively short ex-! istence this hospital has maintained one of the lowest maternal hospitals rates in the world, one of the three lowest perinatal mortality rats in the world, and lowest in the Commonwealth.