MOTHERCRAFT CENTRE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 50, 27 August 1930, Page 13

MOTHERCRAFT CENTRE

ELIZABETH HOSTEL

(From "Tha Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 14th July,

As it is hoped that Her Boyal Highness the Duchess of York will honour the Mothercraft Training Society by opening tho Princess Elizabeth Hostel in October, the usual summer gathering has been deferred. A general meeting of a purely business character was held this week at Carnegie House, Piccadilly, when the report and balancesheet were adopted and oflleors of the society, were elected, ■ The year, says the annual report, has seen • the steady advance in tho building of the hostel for staff and students, with its wing for mothers and babies, the ootnpletion of the same, and finally the move in and Settling down to regular life in it. Miss Pattrick, the director of Pl.uiiket nursing in New Zealand, and first matron ■of the Mothercraft Training Society, arrived in England on 24th September, after spending some time in Canada attending a nursing conference on her way over. Her stay in London has been quite a long one, so she has been able to come into close touch with the work and tho workers, and her ready understanding of difficulties, her wise counsel and charming personality, havo done much to strengthen the bond that has always existed between the workers in Britain and those in Now Zealand.

Statistics show a marked increase in tho society's work in all directions, the total number-of oat-patient atfcendflwcos

how reaches well over 10,000, and more than 1000, over the number recorded for the former year.

With the additional space now available in Elizabeth House, it will be possible to deal with a rather larger number of mothers and babies. Now that work-has boen carried on at Elizabeth House for some months, it is possiblo to state.that the accommodation which it provides is quite ideal for the work for which it is intended, and the society is indeed fortunate in possessing such magnificent premises. The number of fatal eases is fortunately remarkably low, i.e., two for the whole year. Such a very small death-rate must be considered highly satisfactory when it is remembered that many of the in-patient babies are admittod in.an emaciated condition owing to extremely serious digestive disturbances.

There is one way in which Elizabeth House has greatly added to our efficiency as a training school. It has two small rooms in which a student is able to complete her training by being put in charge of one of these, with its baby patient, day and night, just as sho would bo when working in a private house. She is expected to make all arrangements, fix the daily routine, and generally manage as if in full nursing charge. She is encouraged to develop her own ideas, and to learn how to work on. her own responsibility, but under the inspection and criticism of her teachers. In% this way the society is able to put the coping-stone on the training.'it gives its students, by inculcating resourcefulness and selfreliance, qualities not readily acquired during pupilage.