MATERNAL DEATHS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 14 August 1924, Page 5

MATERNAL DEATHS.

REPORT BY COMMISSION. SORRY STATE OF AFFAIRS. DEPARTMENT DEFENDED. (by TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 13. The report of the Royal Commission on the Kelvin maternity hospital, Auckland, was laid on the table of the House of Representatives this afternoon by Sir Maui Pomare (Minister for Health). Mr. M. J. Savage (Auckland West) said the report disclosed a distinctly sorry state of affairs, and he demanded to. know why the report had been supplied to newspapers, hut withheld from members until it was laid on the table of the House. Since the commission’s report, the Public Health Department seemed to have grown very active, and he wondered whose scalp they were after. His view was that the department should begin at home. Prior to the report the department did not seem very anxious, but now they opened up a campaign, which they should have opened long ago. The Auckland health department had been understaffed, which was false economy. Mr. W. D. Lysnar (Gisborne) suggested that one or two administrative heads should be engaged to look after the hospitals of the country. The report under discussion certainly disclosed a laxity of authoritative control. He further drew attention to the charge by Mr. F. Earl (chairman of the commission)' that the report had been held back for three weeks to allow the issue of overdue regulations by the Health Department. Each party to the dispute endeavoured to shield itself by attacking the obvious blunders and weaknesses of the other side, but the position was too serious fox’ recrimination.

Sir Maui Pomare, replying to the criticisms, said that if the department had investigated every death, it would require a staff as large as the whole civil service put together. The Health Department was protecting life every day, and members displayed ignorance of facts if they blamed the department for the deaths at Kelvin. The duty of the department only came in as a secondary matter. Critics should be fair. In the past the Health Department had been the football for a : good many people, and it had never had a chance to kick hack. The Minister denied the charge that the report had been held hack. The regulations now issued had been prepared a year ago. There was nothing new in the report, and the criticism of the department in this respect was unfounded, unfair, and unjust The Health Department in New ’ Zealand was the best organisation of its kind in the world, and, instead of decrying it, people should give it credit for the work it had done and applaud the Government for the way it helned the department to do its work. HEALTH MINISTER ON CAUSE. (By Telegraph.—Special to Star.) 4> ’ , WELLINGTON, Aug. 13. Sir Maui Pomare (Minister* for Health) made some frank ci’itical statements to the House to-day, at the end of a discussion initiated by Labour members on a report of the recent commission which investigated the cause of several deaths in an Auckland maternity hospital. One point made by the critics was that the Health Department, which had been condemned by the commission, had inaugurated a campaign regarding the high maternal death rate. It was puzzling, said Mr. Savage, to know whose scalp they were after. Sir Maui Pomare replied that Labour members seemed to deplore that a campaign had been started to reduce the high death rate in maternity cases. Mr. Savage: We deplore ‘ that you didn’t start it sooner. The Minister suggested that the critics should be glad a start had been made, seeing that New Zealand stood eighth highest in the world’s list of maternity death rates. Mr. Bartram: Denmark is the best of the lot. Dr. Pomare: Does the hon. gentleman know why? Mr. Savage: Because it has a Socialist Government. (Laughter.) The Minister replied that he was un_ aware that Governments had anything to do with such a subject, but he continued: “I do know that in Denmark the mothers are left severely alone, and that the maternal course takes place more readily, and they have midwives instead of undue interference by medical men. Probably—l am almost certain—that is the reason why their death rate is the lowest in the world. It is undue interference, I have said before, and say it again, though I have been taken to task; but it makes no difference, because I know it is the truth, and it is borne out by our own statistics.” Mr. Savage: That is praising the medical men. feir Maui Pomare: That does not matter at all. Medical men differ sometimes, to the detriment of the patient. (Laughter.) The Minister added that some members seemed too prone to decry everything in their own country. Everything was rotten, and the Government was the rottenest in the world. Labour members: Hear, hear. But, concluded the Minister, the New Zealand Health Department stood second to none in the world in regard to its administration of public health, and its example had been followed by many countries, including the muchvaunted Queensland. The result was that New Zealand had the lowest general death rate in the world.