The Evening Star FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1933. MATERNITY SERVICE.

Evening Star, Issue 21499, 25 August 1933, Page 6

The Evening Star FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1933. MATERNITY SERVICE.

The Otago Hospital Board, by its action last evening in recommending that an option be secured over a suitable site in Castle street for the erection of a maternity hospital, has made its response to the invitation of tho Minister of Health that some concrete proposal towards improving the local maternity service should emanate from Dunedin. Two things are clear: there is agreement upon the site, and the Hospital Board is prepared to provide the land upon which it asks the Government to erect a modern hospital. The Hospital Board by its action has indicated its willingness to co-operate, and by the admirable prompitude of its action shown that it is not indifferent to or complacent about the state of the maternity service of the city and district. Mr Coates, however, states that be has not tbe money oven for the very modified scheme that has been tentatively worked out. Merely as a basis for discussion, and with no sense of finality, the Hospital Board’s architect, in consultation with the professor of obstetrics, drafted a plan for a satisfactory modern maternity hospital of twenty-seven beds, with all essential auxiliary departments, which would cost rather less than £25,000. This scaling down of the original plan for a hospital to cost £60,000 has been achieved without sacrifice of usefulness or efficiency, because it was realised that the present economic condition did not justify persistence in the larger scheme. As this comparatively small amount of money would be divided between two financial years it is difficult to understand the Government’s reluctance to embark upon a public work that would provide employment, ensure improved training in midwifery to the future medical men and women of tho dominion, contribute New Zealand's share towards the world-wide campaign against child-birth mortality, and redeem a neglected promise to the women of this country.

Mr Coates further suggested that negotiations were still in progress for enlarging the St, Helens Hospital, and requesting the board to take over the expanded building. This suggestion, made some months ago, was definitely negatived by the board, which refused to be saddled with a sixty-year-old building and its proposed wooden additions. The revival of this plan would appear to be a subterfuge, or an effort on the part of the Government to solace public opinion by a proposal both inadequate and unbusinesslike. The suggested alterations and additions to St. Helens, which could only be temporary and makeshift, are expected to cost £6,000; the Minister of Employment has promised a subsidy of £3,000 towards a new hospital; so that, including the value of the St. Helens property, the Government can visualise expenditure and assets amounting to almost half the cost of a new permanent and modern institution. Further, if a new hospital is built its maintenance will be undertaken by the Hospital Board, with a very considerable relief of the annual charge upon Government funds for maternity service in Dunedin. For the year ending March 31, 1932, the cost to the Government for maintaining this service was £3,558. In a new hospital under control of the board the cost of treating the same number of patients would, approximately, be £3,910, of which the Government would contribute one-half, £1,955. There would therefore result an annual saving of Government funds amounting to £3,558, less £1,955, or £1,503 —sufficient to pay interest at 6 per cent, on a capital outlay of £25,000.

It k fully realised tha,t Dunedin,

even though: it is responsible for tho medical training of all the medical students of the dominion, does not need an extravagant or elaborate maternity hospital, since tho primary function of such an institution is to meet the needs of the comparatively small population of tho Otago hospital district. Nevertheless, the public of this district and the medical faculty can, with all justice, demand that the provision in Dunedin be comparable to that in towns of much smaller size and importance. This at present is not the case, for such towns as Hamilton, Palmerston North, and Timaru have superior and more modern facilities than the fourth city of tho dominion. If the Government will take a longer-sighted view of the position it must be clear that the claims of Dunedin are just and urgent, and that as a mere business proposition the erection of a modern maternity hospital in this city will ultimately relieve tho Health Department of its very unprofitable St. Helens Hospital, with the consequent saving in its annual expenditure.