A MATERNITY HOSPITAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21993, 30 June 1933, Page 6

A MATERNITY HOSPITAL

The Minister of Health gave less than satisfaction to the deputation, representing the University of Otago, the Obstetrical Society of New Zealand, and the Otago Hospital Board which waited on him on Wednesday to represent the need for the erection of the maternity hospital that is to be an adjunct of the Otago Medical School. There is a very definite need at the present time for the erection of this building. The accommodation that is available for maternity cases at Batchelor Hospital, the institution that is maintained in connection with the Medical School, is unsuitable and by no means adequate to modern requirements. The building itself is old and it is only as a makeshift that it has been utilised for many years. It is under serious difficulties that the work of the staff is performed in it. The need of an improvement in the provision for the treatment of mater-; nity cases has long been recognised. The public interest demands the erection of a modern maternity hospital. The status of the Medical School, as a teaching institution, ‘ also demands it. These considerations led to the creation a few years ago of the fund for the endowment of a Chair of Obstetrics in the University of Otago subject to the erection of a maternity hospital which the Government undertook to provide. The Government is now being asked to fulfil its undertaking. It has not been pressed to do so for the past two years but the recent intimation by the acting Prime Minister that the amount available for public works this year will be half a million greater than it was last year inspired the hope that a sum of £50,000 might be made available for this necessary work, j The Minister of Health side-stepped the request for consideration of the claims of the Maternity Hospital to a share of the expenditure on public works, during the year. He indicated that the Government would be prepared to renovate St. Helens Hospital in this city and hand it over to the Hospital Board. The Minister does not seem to realise that the St. Helens Hospital building is a very old structure and that it would cost many thousands of pounds to put it in a reasonable state of repair, while, after all this expenditure had been . incurred, the need for the establishment of a maternity hospital in conjunction with the Medical School would still exist. St. Helens Hospital cannot be a substitute for the maternity hospital, and it would be foolish to pretend that it can be: