HOME FOR CHILDREN

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24085, 2 October 1941, Page 3

HOME FOR CHILDREN

IMPROMPTU "PARENTS" MOTHER'S PROBLEM CARE DURING ABSENCE An incident emphasising the need in Auckland for a residential nursery, a campaign for the establishment, of which is now being launched, occurred yesterday at the St. John Ambulance Association rooms. A woman, whose husband is on a mine-sweeper, and who lives at Green Bay with her family of four children, all under five years of age, was ordered into hospital yesterday. For some time past the St. John Ambulance Association has been endeavouring to procure a housekeeper to look after the woman's children while she is in St. Helens Hospital, but, probably owing to the remote district in which she lives, it was found impossible to procuro such help. When the doctor interviewed his patient yesterday he ordered her into hospital immediately and the urgent question then arose as to what was to become of the four children. Mr. S. E. Langstone, secretary-manager of the St. John Ambulance Association, approached members of tho St. John war sewing guild. Three of the women promptly offered to take one child each to caro for it until the mother left hospital, and the fourth has been sent to a retired school teacher living at Mairangi Hay. The three impromptu "mothers" immediately left the sewing meeting and hurried home to prepare for the new arrivals, who range in age from 12 months to three and a-half years. A St. John district nurse left in an ambulance for the house in Green Bay to collect the children and their belongings, and they were taken to their temporary homes yesterday afternoon. The object of tho residential nursery, which a recently-formed committee of which Mr. Langstone is a member, hopes to establish shortly in Auckland, is to meet just such emergencies as this.