D.P.B. child care test rejected

Press, 17 February 1983, Page 11

D.P.B. child care test rejected

PA Auckland The Nurses' Society has rejected suggestions that Plunket nurses should assess the quality of child care given by solo mothers under 18 years as a condition of their getting the domestic purposes benefit.

The Auckland-based director of the society, Mr David Wills, said that idea was totally repugnant and foreign to good nursing practice. It would get no support from the wider body of nurses.

Benefits should ■ be paid according to need and clients should be free to choose the sort of nursing they wanted, he said.

Mr Wills was commenting on a suggestion to the Minister of Social Welfare. Mr

Young, by Wellington Plunket nurses that benefits for young solo mothers should depend on confirmation by a Plunket or public health nurse or a doctor that the child was being adequately cared for.

The Plunket nurses told the Minister they found some teen-age solo mothers living in unsatisfactory and unstable circumstances. They said it was proving hard to ensure that babies had regular health checks and received immunisations. Too much time was spent tracking down the young mothers.

Mr Wills said his society was writing to Mr Young expressing its vigorous opposition to the suggestions.