OBSTETRICAL HOSPITAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 284, 28 October 1933, Page 11

OBSTETRICAL HOSPITAL

HISTORY OF POSITION. ' STRATFORD, Oct. 27. Commenting upon the discussion when the deputation of Otago members waited on the Ministers of Finance and Health in reference to the obstetrical hospital, Dr. Doris Gordon said that a statement credited to the Minister of Health that the request for a hospital was a comparatively recent development, arising since the establishment of a chair of obstetrics, was not correct, nor indicative of Mr Young's interest in the welfare of women and children. The chair of 'obstetrics, said Dr. Gordon, was established on May 1, 1930, when women had handed over a cheque for £25,000, but as far back as September, 1928, Mr Young had received the Obstetrical Society executive and discussed in an informal way the possibility of securing a hospital. Although unable to offer any financial i promises, the Minister had given helpful advice and had been keenly interested in the possibility of enlisting j the help of women to finance either the I construction of a hospital or the en- | dowment of a professorial chair. I The first official request to Parliament for this hospital was made in February, 1929, by a deputation appointed at a gathering of over 100 New Zealand graduates of medicine to convey to the Minister of Health the pressing need that this hospital should be made up to date and brought into line with similar institutions overseas. These graduates came from all over the Dominion and represented every branch of medical art and the majority of them had no immediate interest in the practice of obstetrics. yet they were unanimous in their request that the one "blot" on the New Zealand Medical School, the "primitive" obstetrical teaching facilities, should immediately be remedied. This deputation was sympathetically received by the Minister of Health at that date, Mr A. J. Stallworthy, and in August. 1929, it was announced that the Government had sanctioned a grant for the hospital. "It was only after Cabinet made this decision," said Dr. Gordon, "that the Obstetrical Society shaped its endowment appeal which culminated in the endowment of an obstetrical chair."