TRAINING MIDWIVES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 57, 30 November 1929, Page 10

TRAINING MIDWIVES

PRESENT SYSTEM NOT SATISFACTORY Dominion Special Service. Dunedin, November 29. The training of midwives was prominently brought before the meeting of the Otago Hospital Board last- night by Mrs. Marshall Macdonald, who said that she brought up the matter as one who was deeply interested in nursing, while at the same time she was not unmindful of the interest and welfare of the patients. The present system would act against the best interests of the hospital and they would not be able to get trainees if a nurse were ambitious and wished to take the midwifery training. It meant that after taking the maternity course here she had to go to another centre find have a repetition of her training. “The whole training is cumbersome and chaotic.” continued Mrs. Macdonald, “and I say that with a full sense of responsibility." She went on to say that women would not go in for this training because tliev would have to spend such a long time. The whole system needed revising, ami until the hospital boards did something there would be no change. The change should he by training midwifery nurses and not by turning out maternity nurses, a system which introduced a sort of “half-baked” nurse. She hoped members would vote for reinstatement ofjthe training in Dunedin. the present ’system seriously affected their institutions because they could not got nurses to train. t Mrs. Ross: The maternity nurses certificate is very unsatisfactory. The chairman remarked tlita there was n great deni in what Mrs. Macdonald had said, and suggested that the matter. should be referred to the Finance Committee. This course was adopted.