PLUNKET SOCIETY

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 123, 25 May 1923, Page 7

PLUNKET SOCIETY

ADDRESS BY DR. J. R. PURDY AT LOWER HUTT

HOSPITAL REFORM AND ANTENATAL TREATMENT.

An important address was delivered last evening by Dr. J. R. Purdy at the annual meeting of the Lower Hutt branch of the Plunket Society. The speaker said his work had been made much easier that evening through reading the report of the work of the Plunket Society in the "Evening Post," and also from the report in the "Evening Post" of the statements of Dr. Edith Barret in Victoria. For a number of years he had been convinced that sufficient, care was not being bestowed on the mothers of our race. Just before the war he had predicted that by 1923 the Dominion would have a State medical service. The war had no doubt prevented this, but it was sure to come, especially a State medical service to look after the mothers. An urgent need for the Valley was a hosiptal, and particularly a maternity hospital. Every woman should during her confinement receive attention in a hospital. No medical man ever thought of dealing with a case of appendicitis outside a hospital, and it was much more important that maternity cases should be so treated. It was good to see that what he had advocated for many yearsr-ante-natal treatment for mothers was at last being taken notice of. Every mother should have at least a week's perfect rest of body and mind before the birth of her child. If proper ante-natal treatment was given, an enormous number of the babies which die during the first month of life could be saved. Years ago the death rate of children at birth in the Hutt Valley was the same as the average for the Dominion, but through the speaker's teaching in regard to ante-natal treatment this had been reduced to nil. (Applause). An important point recently emphasised by Dr. King was that the death rate of infantß during the first month of life had not been reduced ■at all. It was shown that the death rate for the first month was two-thirds of that for the first twelve months, or out of every three children who died during the first twelve months two died during the first month. New Zealand had at present the lowest infant death rate, but New South Wales was rapidly catching up because of her adoption of Plunket Society methods. One of the most important things that the society advocated was the breast feeding of babies, for every illness during the first twelve months of a child's life was due to wrong feeding. Ninety-five per cent.—he would go further and say 99 per cent.—of mothers could suckle their children at least for the first six weeks if they only persisted. Reverting to the question of a regular income for the society, Dr. Purdy said the funds of the society should come out of the hospital rate, which the district contributed to very heavily and received practically no benefit. In fact the people of the district should insist on having a hospital of their own. It was an amazing fact that in this 20th century, New Zealand should be so far behind in the matter of its hospital policy. City hospitals should be just receiving centres for urgent cases, which numbered only one in twenty of the cases. If tha main hospital were established in the Valley patients could be better treated at one-fifth of the cost. The present system of city hospitals was quite out of dale.

On the motion of Mr. D. A. Ewan, Dr. Pardy was cordially thauk«d for his address.