PLUNKET NURSES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 21, 25 July 1910, Page 7

PLUNKET NURSES.

, • THE KARITANE HOME. GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE. {DEPUTATION TO THE PREMIER. x A deputation, representing the Society Jor the Promotion of the Health of Wopien and Children, waited on the Prime Minister and the Hon. D. Buddo today, accompanied by several members of Parliament. Mr. Sidey, M.P., said the headquarters of the society were at Dunedin, and the members present represented districts where there aro Plunket nurses. The request of the deputation was that the Government should renew a grant of £500 for the Karitane Home in Dunedin and of £50 for each Plunket nurse. There are at present thirteen Plunket nurses, and last year in the four centres they attended an average of three hundred cases. The Karitane Home provided a training ground for the nurses. It had been suggested that the home should be brought under the control of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, but they thought that such a step would be a deathblow to the inetitution. It did not exist for charitable purposes only, and was the only institution of the kind in New Zealand, and the interest in it would soon die out if it came under the control of the board. The cost of each Plunket nurse, he added, was about £200, so that the public was subscribing £3 for each £1 that the Government was asked to subscribe. The work of the society did not conflict with the work of the boards' district nurses, and its operations had been directly beneficial in preventing »nd lessening infant mortality. Mrs. Carr said that the society had offered the Government the use of the Karitane Home for the special training of the district nurses. That offer had not been taken advantage of, but was still open, Several members represented that if the annual vote for the nurses was not continued the branches of the society in the various places could not be continued to anything like the same extent. , THE PREMIER'S REPLY. Sir Joseph Ward, in replying, said the fact of a vote for the purposes asked not appearing on the main Estimates did not imply that it was not to be put be- | foTe Parliament this session. It was held over to the Supplementary Estimates for consideration, because the Government -wanted to know what the total cost would bo of -the whole of the proposals' dealing with infant life and maternity cases. That was the chief reason for keeping the item off the main Estimates. Speaking generally, the Government was favourable to what had been carried out both by the Karitane Home fend the Plunket nurses, but in regard to the request for a grant for the .Karitane Home the Government wanted to be sure that such Applications would be limited to one, because a little while ago he was given to understand that a proposal was being made to establish a similar institution in the other centres. The Government ,was not favourable to repeating the vote of last year for the assistance of similar institutions that might be established in various parts of the country. If that ,was asked for it would obviously mean doing away with the one institution -and carrying out the training in one Government institution. The Government was Tiofc unfavourable to the horne — quit© the contrary — but it wanted to avoid the possible duplication and perhaps quadrupling of the system that had been cartied out so capably and thoroughly and satisfactorily in one instance. As far as the nurses were concerned, the Government was favourable to continuing the policy of last year of paying a subsidy of £50 a nurse for a limited number. On the Supplementary Estimates there <vrould be a renewal of the vote. The question of combination between the private and Government schemes was receiving the attention of two of his colleagues, the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Minister of Public Health, and he thought they need not discuss it on that occasion, because any proposals that the Government might have to noke would not be made hurriedly, and would be made in sufficient time to enable those interested to make representations to the Government on the subject. They were all anxious to do what they could to help to bring about an improvement of the conditions under which women had suffered for a very 'considerable time, and he should think that as U result there ought to be an improvement in the birthrate. They were working to bring about en improvement in the condition of things, generally, and' the Government •was anxious to co-operate with them in a reasonable way.