THE CARE OF WOMEN

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7028, 17 January 1910, Page 4

THE CARE OF WOMEN

Most people wo should imagine will sympathise -with the proposals of the Minister for Public Health for increasing the number of maternity nurses in order that the \romen pioneers of the back-blocks may be given inoroased facilities for obtaining the services of such persons. Anyone who knows the conditions" of life in tho remote bush settlements is aware how. very real is tho need in this direction. Anything that can bo don© to minimiso the heartrending tragedies which may ho hoard of in any of tho sparsely populated districts would be a wise and humane step. Yot though tho Minister's ideas, and projects regarding this subject are entirely on the side of humanity and deserving 01 support, it seems ratheT too muoh to hopo that increasing the number of nurses -will counteract the undesirable phenomena revealed by tho statistics rotating to the birth-rate. I The training of midivives and the making of provision for contingencies in the back-blocks are in themselves per- j fectly .justifiable, and they may stand alone upon their own merits. Each proposal recommends itself by definite j reasons and.neither requires to he fortifiod by holding out tho hope that it j will have effect upon tho natural increase of population. It requires a bold man to dogmatise upon tho fundamental cause of the phenomena exhibited by birth-rate returns. Yet neither scarcity nor abundance of midwives oan bo seriously considered to bo an influencing factor. Most certainly, as the Minister said in his speech at New Plymouth on Friday, "it is the duty of tho State to counteract the tendency," but when that is admitted the problem remains exaotly where it was before. Even tho tendoncy itself is at best only half defined by the statistician.