CHAIR OF OBSTETRICS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 26 June 1945, Page 4

CHAIR OF OBSTETRICS

GOAL OF £IOO,OOO FUND Wellington, This Day. The setting-up of a £IOO.OOO fund to endow a Chair <>f Obstetrics aud Gynaecology at the University of Otago Medical School has been recommended by the Auckland Business Men’s Obstetrical and Gynaecological Committee. This follows the decision of the Government to erect and establish in' Auckland an obstetrical and gynaecological hospital for the purpose at once of providing more maternity accommodation. The staffing 'and expenses required for running the hospital will be provided by the Auckland Hospital Board. The committee states that this hospital and the development of post-graduate work iu New Zealand is the result of the untiring demands of a number of women s organizations nil over the country, led by the Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society of New Zealand, who in their desire to improve the conditions surrounding child-birth and the proper care of mothers, have appealed to the citizens of Auckland to provide the funds for a professorial chair because the Government's plans do not include the attachment to this hospital of a unit for post-graduate training and clinical experience under a professor of world standing. The committee had investigated the whole proposal and commended to citizens the setting up of a fund of £IOO.OOO to endow a chair at the university so that a professor of the requisite standing and acceptable to the British Royal College of Obstetrics ami Gynaecology in Loudon be appointed. More than £20.000 has already been contributed by Auckland business houses. Till this post-graduate school was established. graduates from the Otago medical school would have to go overseas for higher qualifications and would often stay abroad. Today these overseas schools were requited for the graduates of their own colleges returning from five years of war ns if they had graduated in one and in the same year. Gifts or donations to .the fund would Im' entitled to exemption from gift duty as gifts to a charitable trust within the meaning of Section 2 of the Death Duties Amendment Act. 1023. Such gifts would r>f 'the* dutiable estate'of" it'd on or fit/the purpose of death duties.

Donations could l>e made in cash, paid in one sum or equal payments spread over fqur years, or in bonds or stock payable lIP to. the ehd of 104.7. or in approved and properly guaranteed annuities.