UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26531, 5 August 1947, Page 2

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

PRIVATE MATERNITY HOMES Private maternity hospitals had done everything in their power to cater for the increase in the birth rate, and in most cases licensees and staff had taken as many patients as possible, and generally more than they were allowed by the Health Department, said Miss J. Trotter, chairman of the Christchurch Private Hospitals’ Association, when commenting on the announcement by the Minister of Health, Miss Mabel Howard, that . private maternity hospitals would soon be available without charge to patients. “To endeavour to push more women into private hospitals is just plain stupidity,”'she said. The ever-increasing costs to hospitals and the suggested 40-hour week for employees were other reasons why private maternity hospitals „could not carry on with a State grant as had been suggested Miss Trotter Continued. “ Sickness and death take no account of the 40-hour week,” she added, “ and I have yet to see the baby that bothers about a human being who wishes to work a 40-hour week.” Miss Trotter agreed with the matron of a hospital in Dunedin who said private maternity hospitals did not know where they were, and that if the hospitals became State institutions a number would close down. “ Every private hospital that closes represents a tragedy for New Zealand.” she said.