TRAINING MIDWIVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20537, 11 April 1930, Page 13

TRAINING MIDWIVES.

MOOTED CENTRALISATION.

WAIKATO BOARD'S REQUEST

[Br TELEGRAPH.—OWN COB RESPONDENT. ]

HAMILTON. Thursday,

A possibility that training in midwifery might be confined in future to the four large centres was suggested in a communication received by'the Waikato Hospital Board to-day from the Health Department. In previous correspondence the Hospital Board had urged that the maternity ward being erected at the Waikato Hospital should be used as a training school for midwives. The communication informed the board that itwould be necessary to make application to the Nurses and Midwives' Registration Board for a permit- to give instruction in midwifery.

The letter continued: 'The Nurses and Midwives' Registration Board is now giving serious consideration to the question of cancelling its approval of nil institutions as training schools for midwives, with the exception of three or four of the largest maternity institutions in the four centres. The matter has not yet been finalised, although the proposals were put before the Hospital Boards' Association and received full and hearty approval. If this scheme eventuates the hospitals at Napier and Whangarei would, of course, be training schools for maternity nurses only." The medical superintendent. Dr. M. M. Hockin, said there was little likelihood of the Waikato Hospital becoming a training centre for midwives.