Request for an Obstetrical Hospital

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7299, 28 October 1933, Page 6

Request for an Obstetrical Hospital

HEALTH MINISTER TAKEN TO TASK Per Press Association. STRATFORD, Last Night. Commenting upon the discussion when the deputation of Otago members of Parliament waited on the Ministers of Finance and Health in reference to an obstetrical hospital at Dunedin, Dr. Doris Gordon said that the 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 Hon. J. A. Young’s interest in the welfare of women and children. “The chair of obstetrics,” said Dr. Gordon, “was established on May 1, 1930, when the women handed over a cheque for £25,000, but as far back as September, 192 S Mr. Ybung received the Obstetrical Society executive and discussed in an informal way the possibility of securing a hospital. Although unable to offer any financial promises, the Minister gave helpful advice and was keenly interested in the possibility of enlisting the help of women to finance cither the construction of the hospital or the endowment of a professorial chair.

“The first official request to Parliament for this hospital was mado in February, 1929, by a deputation appointed at a gathering of over 100 Now 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 the 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 anounccd that the Government had sanctioned a grant for the hospital. “It was only after Cabinet had made this decision,” said Dr. Gordon, ‘‘that the Obstetrical Society shaped its endowment appeal, which culminated in the endowment of the obstetrical chair. ’ ’