PLUNKET SOCIETY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23592, 28 February 1940, Page 13

PLUNKET SOCIETY

URGENT NEED OF FUNDS LARGE INCREASE IN WORK RELIANCE ON PUBLIC AID Faced with a further great increase in work during the past year, without a corresponding increase in voluntary contributions, the Auckland Plunket Society will make its annual street appeal on Friday. Constant calls are being made for further extensions of the work, but unless the financial position improves* the society is in danger of having to consider curtailing rather than extending its activities. , . The society at present has a deficit of £IS(H) on the year's working. The organisation's subsidy from the Government amounts to only a third "of the amount required to be raised annually, and it is necessary to obtain £3500 a year by. voluntary contributions in the Auckland area to maintain the work it is at- present doing. For; the 10 months of'the present financial year the number of interviews dealt AVith bv»the Auckland area staff lias increased by no fewer than 19.839 as compared with the corresponding figure last year. The society now maintains in the area a staff of 17 nurses, and there.are calls' for further increases. It has 23 rooms under it.s jurisdiction, and it is proving impossible, in view of shortage of funds, to respond to appeals to open rooms in other districts, All sections l of the society's work have increased this vear.

''The work we are doing is of a national character," said the president. Mrs. ,T. C. Allan, yesterday. "The society should not be allowed to have to consider curtailment of activities.

"The present generation has perhaps not known what it is to bo without the society, and may have come to take its existence and work for granted. To-day 85 per cent of all the babies born in the Auckland area come under its supervision. It is facing further responsibilities in caring: for the babies of soldiers' wives. The public has never let us down in the past, and it is to be hoped it gives its support now.