14 Years' Work Wrecked

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 162, 12 July 1939, Page 4

14 Years' Work Wrecked

Obstetrician s Grave Charge Against Government

MATERNITY HOSPITALS MENACED

Per Press Association.

CHRISTCHURCH, July 11,

That by opening the obstetrical teaching hospitals of the country to all women and to any doctor the Government was rendering the Dominion a grave disservice was the contention put forward by the distingusihed obstetrician, Dr. Henry Jellett, of Christchurch, iu an interview.

Dr. Jellett, who was for seven years consultant to tho Health Department iu obstetrical matters, said that by bringing tho obstetrical teaching hospitals such as St. Helen’s into the Social Security maternity benefits scheme, tho Government was undoing the work of the last 34 years to reduce maternal mortality in New Zealand.

It was true, commented Dr. Jellett, that tho Government had not turned private hospitals into teaching institutions. It had merely dope the opposite and turned the teaching institutions into private hospitals. Thus a return had been made to the state of affairs from which Australia made a determined effort to emerge in 1929 and the work of all those who had tried to reduce maternal mortality in New Zcal&ud during the last 14 years had been wrecked.

“Clinical teaching and experience is an essential part of all obstetrical instruction. Without it theoretical teaching is of small value. To throw open the teaching hospitals to all women and to any doctor is to make clinical instruction impossible. The Government may have made an admirable democratic gesture but if it cannot bring itself to recognise that even Labour Governments are governed by facts it will some day find itself described as the Society for Promotion of Maternal Mortality.

“It has not constulted people capable of judging the effect of the Act. I suggest that it did not even consult any of its own advisers as to the effect of this action ou medical education—in particular such men as the DirectorGeneral of Health (Dr. M. H. Watt) or Dr. T. L. Paget, who is largely responsible for the measures which have resulted in lowering the maternal death rate in New Zealand, or Professor J. B. Dawson, Professor of Midwifery at Dunedin. ”