SAFER MATERNITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20481, 5 February 1930, Page 13

SAFER MATERNITY.

A CHAIR OF OBSTETRICS.

APPEAL FOR £25,000 MADE.

STATE SUBSIDY PROMISED. The need of reorganising the midwifery department of tho New Zealand School of Medicine is being urged by tho Obstetrical Endowment Appeal Society of New Zealand, and an appeal for the purpose of raising funds is to bo launched next month. A sum of £25,000 is aimed at. Auckland and Wellington are expected to raise £7500 each, while the share for Christchurch and Dunedin has been worked out at £SOOO each on a population basis. The Government will subsidise all moneys collected pound for pound and if the appeal meets with the response and sympathy it deserves it will be possible to found a chair of obstetrics in Dunedin and appoint a professor on the subject. The Government has already granted £50,000 to build a maternity hospital in Dunedin as part of the scheme, where medical students in future will study under modern conditions with the best tuition. The Obstetrical Society, in making this appeal, considers that if the maternity hospital is built and equipped and there are no funds available for the endowment of the chair of obstetrics much of the hospital's usefulness will be lost to the mothers of New Zealand.

The Plunket Society and the Government havt* combined and instituted a school for midwives in Dunedin. The much appreciated work of this society in arranging pre-natal lectures and teaching prospective mothers how to take care of themselves has done a great deal toward lowering the maternal and infant mortality in New Zealand. The Plunket Society, together with other women's societies, feels that much more can be done for tho mothers. The crying need of the moment is the endowment of the chair of obstetrics and every woman is asked to help to the best of her ability in a great effort to make maternity safer. The appeal has the earnest co-operation of Lady Alice Fergusson.