MATERNAL WELFARE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 113, 9 November 1937, Page 5

MATERNAL WELFARE

NEW HOSPITAL OPENED

(By Tele?raph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, November 8. The Queen Mary Maternity Hospital, erected by means of State aid, a handsome donation from the Dunedin Savings Bank and generous private bequests, to meet the increasing need in the sphere of maternal welfare in Otago, was officially opened today by the Minister of Health (the Hon. P. Fraser). There was a large attendance representative of local bodies, the medical and nursing professions, and the general public. ' Mr. Fraser said they were celebrating an important occasion in the life of the community and he offered congratulations to the organisers of the plan to build such a hospital and also to those who had so ably carried it out. The earliest official reference to the provision of. a public maternity service in New Zealand, the Minister said, appeared in the first annual report of Dr. George Wallington-Grab-ham. who was appointed inspector of hospitals in 1882. In his report dated January 29, 1883, he mentioned that "the small wooden annexe on the north side of Dunedin Hospital contains a lying-in department which consists of two wards, a small kitchen, and a room for a midwife," and, as one might well expect, he found also "that a careful system of bookkeeping is in use at this hospital, all supplies being carefully checked. There can be no doubt that this hospital is under good and able management."

Thus it would appear that to the Dunedin Hospital authorities belonged the signal honour of providing the first' maternity service in New Zealand. Following the opening at Dunedin of St. Helens Hospital in 1905 by the Government, a further step was taken in 1907 when the Batchelor Hospital was established. This was the first public maternity hospital to be provided by a hospital board, and t.n Dr. F. C. Batchelor must be given much of the credit for this advance. Dunedin could therefore claim to have shown far-sighted vision so characteristic of that branch of the British race which founded the city. Fiftyrfive years after the establishment of the first lying-in ward they were assembled to open this modern wellequipped maternity hospital of 26 beds, with a resident medical officer. It was to replace the St. Helens and Batchelor Hospitals.