MATERNAL MORTALITY

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10956, 19 July 1921, Page 7

MATERNAL MORTALITY

DR HERBERT’S CHARGES “INJUSTICE TO MINISTER AND DIRECTOR OF HEAI/TH.” “HURRIED MIDWIFERY.” Reference was made yesterday by the Minister for Public Health (the Hon. O. J. Parr) to the receiß statement by Dr W. E. Herbert iff regard to maternal mortality. The Minister remarked: “Dr Herbert does myself, Dr Valintine (Director of Health), and, I think, also himself some injustice by rushing into print without much concern, for facts. His charge that I have made ‘hasty remarks’ and conveyed ‘quite a wrong idea’ is absurdly untrue (added the Minister). I have, on the contrary, been most careful to accept no figures as correct without requiring careful investigation. My pmblie utterances prove this. And I shall see that the .first duty of the Board of Health ivhen it meets on the 27th instant will be to examine the comparative tables and returns, with a view to getting at the truth. In dealing with this serious problem, Dr Herbert’s statement dbes not help us a little bit. Though it may be quite true that under the heading of puerperal cases the New Zealand returns show some deaths which should appropriately come under another heading, there still remains the awkward fact for Dr Herbert, that other countries adopt the same system of returns as New Zealand does; and that, by a comparison based on the same method of calculation we stand condemned of a deathrate in excess of every other country but one. The public will not be greatly concerned as to whether a score or two of deaths come under an inappropriate heading. What I and the public are concerned "about is t]je broad fact that in New Zealand to-day far too many of our young women die in child-birth from causes which can, and ought to be, easily prevented. Det Dr Herbert face the broad issue, and not quibble about the heading to returns. Our critic takes exception to Dr Yalintine’s statement that there is ‘too much hurried midwifery.’ Dr Truby King has also assorted that there is ‘too much meddlesome midwifery.’ Of course, Dr Herbert may be right, and Dr Valintine and Dr Truby King wrong. Perhaps everything is all right in this respect. But a letter from, a well-known medical man just received seems to show that it is Dr Herbert who does not appreciate the position, and that there is, in truth, altogether too much interference in childbirth. Here is my correspondent’s letter: “ ‘When I was at I rarely delivered with forceps, and the women who came to the plaoe circulated the report that I was a callous brute, who allowed them to suffer, whereas the doctors did not do so. Before I went to long periods had elapsed with no medical aid, and the placet was full of big families and healthyl mothers. I left a healthy lot of women and children behind, and also I was not expert with forceps, because I had so little experience. In (where the writer now practises) all practically are delivered with forceps, and I am most expert in the use of them—■ forgive the self-advertisement. The women won’t wait, and their husbands are worse, and the doctor is called in to give chloroform. The practice is not so bad if. time be given for proper* dilation and the moulding of the head. The medico who insists on this time qniokly loses his confinement work. The work goes to the man who hops in quickly, and who does the anaesthetic act right away. I am not responsible for this state of affairs. The nurses whom I have trained in my w.ay of thinking are classed as unsympathetic. They are openly talked about as the women who will not call a doctor early enough.’ ” “There is no doubt that the conditions depicted in the above letter,” added the Minister, “lead to a great deal of ‘hurried midwifery.’ ' I am sure that neither Drs Valintine nor King consider that ‘hurried midwifery’ is the only cause of preventable maternal deaths, but that it is one cause, is, I am afraid, only too true. As I said the other day, and I repeat now, it js little use * blaming the department, the doctors, or the nurses. We have all got tt> get together in a spirit of friendly co-opera-tion. Dr Herbert, if he approaches the matter in this spirit, oari help us. Excuses and half-apologies are worse than useless.”