PLUNKET SOCIETY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23202, 28 May 1937, Page 7

PLUNKET SOCIETY

BUILDING CAMPAIGN FIRST LIST OF, DONATIONS The following donations have been made to the Plunket Society's building campaign fund: — Lord Nuffield £ 1000 Misses Johnstone 500 "Anonymous" 500 Dunedin City Council .. .. 500 Dunedin Savings Bank .. .. 500 Lady Sidey 250 Sir Percy Sargood 200 J. Edmond's estate (approx.) .. 200 Mrs Joseph M'George .... LOO Miss Theomin 100 T. K. S. Sidey 100 "Anonymous" 100 Mosgiel Woollen Factory. Ltd. .. 100 N.Z. Breweries, Ltd. (Speight's branch) 100 Otago Daily Times Co. .... 75 Evening Star Co 75 Lady Allen 50 Sir Louis and Lady Barnett .. 50 Mrs Mary Allan .. 50 Mrs Donald Reid 50 Mrs Thomas Fergus, sen 50 Mr and Mrs James Begg, .. 50 Isaac Stevenson 50 Messrs Donald Reid and Co., Ltd. .. 50 Westport Coal Co.. Ltd 50 Kempthorne, Prosser, and Co. Ltd. .. 50 Messrs Coull, Somerville. Wilkie 50 £4950 THE PIONEER HOSPITAL GREAT VALUE OF WORK PRESSING NEED OF SUPPORT "New Zealand has now the lowest infant mortality rate in the world, and I do not think there are many people, even including partisans of other systems, who would deny Sir Truby King much of the credit for having placed our country in this enviable and honourable position," said Miss Nina Reid, a member of the committee of the Dunedin branch of the Plunket Society, in an appeal broadcast last night from 4YA for public subscriptions to the society's building fund. "Much sentiment attaches to the original Truby H. King-Harris Hospital building," she said, "for it is rich in memories, both of the enthusiastic and inspiring personality of the society's founder and of those pioneer women, both lay and professional, who gave their means and themselves so unreservedly to the work. But, unfortunately, no amount of sentiment will keep a building from falling to decay. We have been galvanised into immediate action by the condition attaching to the £IOOO allocated to the hospital building fund by the Mayor (the Rev. E. T. Cox) from the Lord Nuffield fund. The Mayor has stipulated that, in order to gain this handsome sum, we must see to it that the building of the hospital is begun within 12 months." " NO CLASS OR CREED"

" In its work the Plunket Society recognises no difference of class, creed, race or political colour; to it a baby represents a life to be cherished and saved, and a mother a human being to be encouraged and helped." Miss Reid said. Among all humanitarian organisations working in New Zealand for the health of the people the Plunket Society's work was unique in that it was preventive, rather than curative. By its ante-natal work the society began caring for its babies before they were born, and tried to do all that it could to ensure their being born well babies. For, as Sir Truby King had said: "It is better to put up a fence at the top of a cliff than to maintain an # ambulance at the bottom.' The majority of Dunedin parents were acquainted with the service so freely offered on these lines at the various Plunket rooms in our city. " Infant life Is a very precious thing." Miss Reid continued. "Never was it more valuable to the nation than it is to-day. and the Plunket Society's experience shows that the majority of the infants that have passed through its hospitals are set upon a normally healthy childhood and. later, make normally useful citizens. Many are already playing, their part in the life of this city, for the society is old enough now to see its success demonstrated by a second generation being brought to its rooms for observation and supervision. So much for the large majority of the so-called delicate and for the minority—well, they have at least been given a chance. Moreover, the battle is not always to the strong. Many of the world's most useful brains have been set in frail foodie's. We need not extol the Truby King or Plunket system of maternal and infant care. Its success has been its own advertisement, and on its own merits it has spread widely abroad. e\ in so far as to necessitate the translation into foreign languages of Sir Truby King's handbook for mothers." HISTORY OF HOSPITAL The source from which this system had spread abroad was the Dunedin Centre's modest, hospital at Anderson's Bay, where Sir Truby King, the society's eminent and revered founder, initiated his system. Even apart from this historic association, Dunedin citizens might well be proud of this humble building, which was first adapted for a hospital in 1907. the year that Sir Truby King's system was first publicly put on trial. There were then no funds at command, save such as were supplied by Sir Truby King himself and by a small but devoted band of Dunedin supporters—mostly women who had faith in him and who formed the first committee of what was later to be known familiarly as the Plunket Society. A lease was secured of a property on which stood a cottage and a stable. The stable was converted into a nurses' home and the cottage was adapted, with as little expense as possible, for use as a babv hosoital. In 1910, as a tribute to Sir.Truby King and his successful labours, Mr Wolf Harris purchased the property and generously dedicated it to the work, Sir Truby King's system was (hits founded in Dunedin, and Dunedin was to-day the headquarters of the society, and the training centre for all Plunket nurses. In all this work the society associated Lady King's name with that of her husband, whose earnest co-worker she was throughout the years of his research and the society's foundation. PIONEER WORK

Very precious indeed in the annals of the Dunedin centre, Miss Reid said, was the tradition of the work that had been accomplished in this pioneer hospital. Every Plunket nurse that had worked throughout New Zealand had been trained in its simple wards and small laboratory before going out on her mission of helping the mothers and saving the babies. Within its walls the premature, mal-nurtured, and nonthriving had been nursed into health and given back to arms that, but for Sir Truby King's research, might have gone away empty. In its mothercraft

section young and inexperienced mothers had been given knowledge and confidence.

The new hospital would be as simple in design, both inside and out, and as modest iri size as was compatible with the work that was to be carried out there. This was in accordance with the express wish of Mr Wolf Harris when dedicating the property to the society's work, and the sentiment was strongly supported by Sir Truby King. As it was in the old hospital, so it would be in planning the new, and the first thought was for the needs and comfort of the mothers and babies under the society's care. LOWEST IN WORLD "The fact that the infant mortality rate." Miss Reid said, "had persisted at a high point for years, coupled with the fact that there was an appreciable fall very soon after the, introduction of the Plunket system, and also with the fact that the rate continued to fall as an increasing number of New Zealand's babies came under the care of the society's nurses until it became the lowest in the world, is, we claim, sufficient evidence that Sir Truby King is entitled to all honour in this connection and that his Plunket system of maternal care and infant welfare has been proved a good one and well worth fighting for. working for. and giving for. The need is a pressing one, and never before Has a public appeal been made in connection with the Dunedin Centre's hospital building For 30 years the branch committee has battled bravely along, paying its own way as regards the many alterations and additions that have been necessary in order to make what was at best an adapted cottage cope with the work as it exDanded.

" Now, for the first time, the committee is obliged to launch out on a building scheme before having the money in hand to meet the cost, but we are going forward in faith, remembering that it was the fine spirit of voluntary giving on the part of leading citizens of Dunedin that first set this humanitarian service on its feet. When our generation has reaped where another sowed, surely it will not be lacking in that fine spirit to-day."