A MATERNITY HOSPITAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21997, 5 July 1933, Page 6

A MATERNITY HOSPITAL

Three deputations to Ministers of the Crown within a fortnight should have convinced the Government of the earnestness of the request that it should now proceed with the deferred project of the erection of a maternity hospital in Dunedin. The deputation from the Otago University Council and the Otago Hospital Board which interviewed the Minister of Employment on the subject this week had an encouraging reception. The Minister inclined a sympathetic ear to the suggestion that the Unemployment Board's funds might be fittingly drawn upon for the erection of the building. He went so far as to say that the Board would agree to subsidise the cost of its construction. This is satisfactory so far as it goes. The erection of a maternity hospital in accordance with its promise is a Government work, which the Government has yet to agree to put in hand. When representations that the Government should proceed with the erection of the hospital were placed before him at Wellington last week the Minister of Health introduced a sideissue by putting forward the suggestion of his department that the St. Helens Hospital at Dunedin should be taken over by the Otago Hospital Board. The inference was that the requirements emphasised by' the deputation could be met in this way. But as an alternative to the erection of an up-to-date maternity hospital in Dunedin this suggestion is wholly unsatisfactory. The Otago Hospital Board has no desire to be saddled with an old and unsuitable building, and obviously it would be poor economy to spend some thousands of pounds upon the renovation of the St. Helens Hospital with the result that the fulfilment of the programme of which the raising of the funds necessary for the endowment of the Chair of Obstetrics at Otago University was an important part would simply be postponed. The Chairman of the Hospital Board has put the position plainly from the viewpoint of .that body. Money spent in renovating the St. Helens Hospital would, he says, be simply thrown away. . The requirements of the Medical School, which is a national institution, are a very important factor in the matter, and must receive recognition from the Government. They would not be met by the utilisation of the St. Helens Hospital. The Minister of Employment has evinced a ready appreciation of the force of the argument that the reputation of the Medical School is involved in this matter, since, if the training of students in midwifery is to be conducted in compliance with the conditions upon which medical authority insists, the requirements can be met only by the provision of a well-planned and adequately equipped maternity institution as an adjunct to the Medical School. For this the St. Helens Hospital could be no substitute. The Government must realise,

therefore, that only the falfilment of its original undertaking will meet requirements.