Urgent Demand For Maternity Hospitals

Northern Advocate, 5 July 1947, Page 6

Urgent Demand For Maternity Hospitals

(Special) WELLINGTON. This Day. More public maternity hospitals to meet the urgent demands of the times and to take the place of private hospitals which are being forced to close by present conditions, are urged by a committee of inquiry into maternity hospital staffing which has issued a report as a supplement to the New Zealand Medical Journal. The investigation was requested by the New Zealand Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society because of general concern at the inadequacy of maternity hospital accommodation and the serious shortage of nursing and domestic staff. DEPARTMENT CRITICISED

Beyond showing a keen concern for the maintenance of a very high standard of midwifery training at all costs, the Health Department has done little to assist actively in the solution of the ever-increasing difficulties of maternity hospital provision, the report said.

The committee felt that the maternity hospital policy of the department itsc-lf had been extremely dilatory. Other points from the report were:

The conflict between private maternity hospital enterprise and steeply mounting costs should be overcome by an increase in the general maternity hospital benefit. However, it was clear that an increasing amount of provision for facilities must be made by some public authority. There was also a conflict between the interests of the many women who desired public hospital facilities at no additional direct cost and the public authorities who had to provide the facilities under great building and staffing difficulties. Thera was an urgent need for hospital boards in a' number of areas to make some immediate provision. The responsibility for public maternity hospital provision was causing confusion and uncertainty in several of '.the main cities between the hospital boards and the Department of Health. A clear decision should be made to place responsibility for administration of public maternity hospitals in the hands of hospital boards. WORKING CONDITIONS The committee saw a conflict between the maternity nursing services and all other competitors for female labour.

It submitted suggestions for making working and living conditions as attractive as possible and. for raising the status of those engaged in a career. After dealing with effects of increased costs the report stated that there had been, with a few notable exceptions, a deterioration in the type of accommodation, both in public and private hospitals, largely as the result of inevitable crowding and inability to carry out adequate maintenance. instances came to the notice of the committee of conditions in public institutions which could not but be regarded as potentially dangerous.