“ASTOUNDING NEGLECT”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22022, 3 August 1933, Page 10

“ASTOUNDING NEGLECT”

THE OBSTETRICAL HOSPITAL SUPPORT FROM CHRISTCHURCH Commenting editorially on the resolution passed at New Plymouth on Monday night calling on the Government to fulfil its promise to erect an obstetrical hospital in Dunedin, the Christchurch Press lends full endorsement to the appeal. The article recalls the launching of a campaign in 1930 by the Obstetrical Society and the raising of £25,000 for the endowment of a chair of obstetrics in the Medical School, together with a further £7OOO for the establishment of two scholarships in the subject, and proceeds to deplore the delay in providing the necessary hospital facilities that would spell the fulfilment of the scheme. “Dunedin’s hospital facilities,” it is remarked, “ are wretchedly less than adequate,” and the work of Dr Dawson and his students is handicapped by the limitations of the Batchelor Maternity Hospital and St. Helens Hospital. “ It is sufficiently clear,” the article continues, “ that if the Government contents itself with spending about £4OOO on additions to St. Helens Hospital, as the Minister of Health recently hinted to a deputation, it will stop very far short of what it should do and can do. There is no need to stress the obligation, it is under, because of its promise, to the Obstetrical Society and the women of New Zealand. Everybody admits that many things promised have had to be withheld. But it is not too much to say that, if the hospital is not built, the standard of obstetrical training will continue to be lower than the nation can afford, and may even slip: and such deficiency is paid for in lives, in health, and in happiness. “ Since the Government has declared for a programme of carefully chosen public works, it ought not to hesitate or compromise. It could not include a better or more necessary undertaking than this, which would remedy a neglect astounding in a country where the infant death-rate has been steadily reduced and the average life has been made longer, healthier, and happier. What has been neglected has been the possibility and the duty of reducing the death-rate among mothers and of. caring better for their health before and after child-birth.

“It is to be hoped,” the article concludes, “that the Government’s response to the New Plymouth appeal will leave this reproach to apply only to the past; but if not, then what was said in one town will have to be said in every town and city until it has its effect.”