WORKING MEN’S BABIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4757, 3 January 1918, Page 5

WORKING MEN’S BABIES.

A WELLINGTON ARGUMENT. There has been some little argunient at Wellington recently concerning the birth -rate, and the following theory for the causej put in the sliape of questions to Dr Bedford, has been propounded by, a working-class 'father. He asks: —“What I would like to ask is how a-working man, earning £3 6s per week, can afford to pay £5 5s for a doctor and £3 3s per week for a -certified nurse, who will do • nothing but look a fte r tlie patient; (you have to get other help) besides paying rent, keep the house going, and three or foujvother children to feed?” That Was his idea why there was such a decline in the birthrate, and until something was done to make it easier for the working people at those times he held that the birth-rate would be no better. The Minister for. Public Health, the HonG. W. Russell, has taken it upon himself to answer the questions by referring to the St. Helen’s Hospitals, which the Government has established m .various parts of the Dominion. As is well known, these institutions are intended to reduce tbe cost of child-birth to all wives whose 'lius- , bands are earning £4 or less per week. The Minister stated that the fees to a wage earner wha was earning say, £3 6s per week, would be £1 per week while the prospective mother was waiting for confinement, and £1 10s per week after the baby is born, during tlie two weeks which is the usual stay of mothers in the institution. The cost of £1 10s per week ( covers everything, including medical services, nursing, etc. The Matrons of St. .Helen’s Hospitals are prepared to advise prospective mothers free of all cost; and all the babies tlmt are born in the institution are followed up after birth by nurses engaged there. . Not -only is that the case, blit the St. Helen’s Hospitals have also an outdoor department, by which advice and assistance and nursing are given to those mothers whose children are born in their own homes.