FINE RECORD ESTABLISHED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27580, 23 December 1950, Page 3

FINE RECORD ESTABLISHED

Huge Maternity, Hospital In Sydney

From Cedric R. Mentiplay, Special Australian Correspondent, NZPA.

SYDNEY, December 7.

A factory housed in a stone four-storeyed building in Surry Hills—perhaps Sydney’s least-favoured area—has claimed a perfect production record for the year. Sydney citizens know it better as Crown street Women’s Hospital, but its manager, Matron Edna Mary Shaw, 0.8. E., insists that the title factory suits it better —a production centre which operates on a continuous 168-hour weekly schedule. The record? Six thousand babies born during the year, without the loss of one mother. Records are nothing new at Crown street, for though it is only one of a number of hospitals serving the needs of mothers in a city of one and a half million people it is always in the Hardly a week passes without something unusual happening at Crown street. The size of it alone does not account for this—it seems as if Sydney preserves a special place in its heart for this particular hospital and its matron.

The 260 beds are filled every day of the year, and there is always a waiting list. Even so,' Matron Shaw carried out the hospital’s policy to the letter: “Not a needy patient turned away.” There is even provision for country women who must travel vast distances, and who often are forced to bring their other chldren with them. Expectant mothers headed for Crown street have had their babies on trains, ships, and motor vehicles, on the Harbour Bridge, and in streets. Others have got as far as the steps of the hospital itself. That is not surprising, for the natal trek is always on, from the suburbs and the back-country, from other States, and from theislands off the coast. Last year the hospital treated more than 9000 patients, and had to turn away 2600 others. Recently two mothers offered to bring • their own beds, but the hospital replied that it needed space first. • Paradoxically, the Women’s Hospital, as it is properly called, was born because Sydney offered small welcome to babies arriving in a growing .metropolis. . In the ’eighties the city suffered a grave lack of systematic treatment for women in childbirth. Until late in the century the only accommodation available was in the Lying-in Department of the Benevolent Society. Humble Beginnings The need for a suitable institution impressed itself strongly upon the minds of two eminent Sydney doctors of that time—Sir James Graham and A. Watson Munro. These two doctors and Dr L. E. F. Neill and Mr David Fell got together and started the Women’s Hospital. ' A It opened its doors on October 16, 1893, in premises consisting of four rooms and an attic in Hay street, Belmore Park. It provided accommodation for few indoor patients, but the outdoor department grew rapidly. During the first year women got free advice and aid—minor operations were performed on patients in their homes. In the/early years Sir James Graham lent his private surgical instruments to' the medical staff because the hospital was too poor to buy its .own. In 1895 it became a public institution, with Miss Hannah McLeod, formerly nurse in charge of its dispensary, as first matron. It became too big for its

Hay street home, and in 1896 premise* were rented at 292 Elizabeth street a* . an ifidoor department. Eight months later it moved to Crown street, there to grow far beyond the vision of its founders. •

Today it is a smooth-running, wellmanaged unit which handles about 500 babies a month. It is up-to-date in every phase of motherhood. With ' tests on rabbits and white mice, doctors can give a positive diagnosis of pregnancy in five days. And when a*’ baby is born there is no chance taken,' of its going to anybody but its mother. ' The hospital has a foolproof system of tab, check, and counter-check. Operating costs have risen from £llO a year to more than £300,000 a year. Every day its patients eat about 140 loaves of bread ,and 1001 b of meat, and drink' about 40 gallons of milk. And every day more than 1000 nappies go into the wash in the hospital laundry.

During its first year 43 nurses wer« given midwifery instruction at the hospital. This year 141 nurses are training there, and the hospital has a waiting list of applicants. In 1902 Sydney University recognised Crown Street as an instructional school in midwifery and obstetrics for medical students. Now 100 medical students train there annually, and at present .20 doctors are doing a post-graduate course at the hospital. More than 80,000 > Australians have been bora at Crown Street; more than 500,000 patients have been treated 1 there. The smallest surviving baby, a girl, weighed l£lb; the biggest, a boy, \ weighed 141 b 2oz. The hospital’s oldest r mother was 52, its youngest 12. It had .y its biggest day when 32 babies were -2 born. r. ' Strangely enough, the highest number of children born in multiple pregnancies has been three. But you never can tell, and multiple births have increased lately with a record number of 100 expected this year. \ 1 Human. Interest .Stories The books don’t tell all the odd angles attaching t<J Crown Street. For >■ instance, there are the two pensioners, a man and a woman uve in rooms in Surry Hills and arc among the hospital’s most frequent callers. Each of them sus in tne „u,nital ball, and each of them gives the , same reason for being there: “ I just want to iook at the baoies.” 1 The hospital-even has its unofficial Good Samaritan, Surry Hills newsagent, Ted Cotton, who delivers papers, buys lottery tickets, posts letters, sends telegrams and even makes telephone calls for the patients. Cotton has been doing this for 25 years, and now he is training his son to take over. *t In many families it is traditional to have babies at Crown Street. There is, for instance, the woman who had 11 children at the hospital. Her daughter had nine children there, and recently her grand-daughter had her - first child at the hospital Mother and daughter in another family each had 13 children born at Crown Street. Crown Street numbers am«m? its most hectic hours the early January morning last year-when a young married woman stole a six-day-old baby from: a crib beside a mother’s hospital bed. Eleven hours later police recovered the baby unharmed in a suburban home. Police, however, are seldom called there. Even the drunk* are impressed by the calm and quiet of the hospital and leave quietly. Unmarried mothers from nearly every State in Australia, and even from New Zealand, come to the hospital' to have their babies. And all of them receive kindly, protective treat- < ment. More than one unmarried mother has been married to the father of her child in a bedside ceremony at the hospital. Others have been married to men who have' written ’ to the hospital asking for help in finding a wife. .

Over Crown Street watches, smils- , • -• —' Shaw, -who, went there in 1919, intending to stay *. cu.a became the/hospital's sixth matron. Apart from the thousand and one things she does at Crown Street. Matron Shaw keeps a box full "of wedding rings for unmarried mothers In her' cabinet drawer. And each week she puts away part of her salary to help poorer people in the district who frequently “put the „ touch ” on her.