PLUNKET SOCIETY

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 163, 11 June 1926, Page 6

PLUNKET SOCIETY

FIGHT AGAINST INFANTILE MORTALITY. ADDRESS BY HON. J. A. YOUNG. “I must congratulate you on the progress that has been made during the past year,” stated Hon. J. A. Young, Minister of Health, when addressing the annual meeting last evening of the local branch of the Plunket Society. The Health Department, continued the speaker, had always been sympathetic towards the society, which had originated about 19 years ago. Since that time the work of the society had been copied or duplicated in many other countries, thus showing the great importance that attached to it. When operations had been commenced in New Zealand there had been only one nurse employed by the society, while now therp were approximately 100 full-time nurses. The problem of infantile mortality had, from the outset, attracted attention, and New Zealand, stated the speaker, had got nearer the solution tnan any other country. Due entirely to the work of the society, the infantile death rate in the Dominion had fallen from eight per hundred to four per hundred, and New Zealand had the distinction of having the lowest death rate for infants in the world. Dunedin, with two per hundred, had the lowest rate of any city in the world. . Infantile mortality, continued the speaker, was due mainly to the ignorance of the young mother who did not know how to properly care for her child. Many of the- deaths were due to errors in diet, through the child not obtaining proper nourishment in the early days of its life. _ The matter of saving the young child was of supreme importance to the State, and anything that could be done in this direction must be beneficial to the country’s welfare. With the development of preventive medicine in recent years, many diseases had almost come to be things of the past, and the Plunket Society was working on those lines, maintaining that prevention was better than cure. The Government recognised the value of the society’s work and was subsidising it in? several ways. Towards each nurse s salary the Government contributed £125 per annum, and. in addition to that, Parliament would this coming session provide £15,000 to assist in carrying on the regular work of the society and £26,000 for the erection and maintenance of Karitane Hospitals. The question of health was one that concerned the individual, and the question of sickness was one ior_ the doctor. Personally, the Minister would advise all to consult their medical practitioner from time to time, because if disease were discovered in the incipient stages it would be more easily checked. In the community to-day were many boys and girls who owed their lives to the work of the Plunket Society, and he was gratified to see that in Palmerston North there were so many interested in the movement. There was a great field for work within the ranks of the society, and the speaker made _a plea for all who could spare the time to take up the work. Concluding, Mr Young expressed the hope that the local branch’s efforts to erect permanent rooms of its own would soon be brought to fruition. A hearty vote of thanks was accorded the Minister on the motion of Mr J. Ireland, seconded by LieutenantColonel J. H. Whyte.