MATERNAL MORTALITY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 20 June 1924, Page 9

MATERNAL MORTALITY.

To the Editor of Lite “Timaru Herald” Sir, lour leader in . Saturdiiv s issue on the Maternal Mortality in '.New Zeahmd is opportune, it is to be hoped that those , wiio are carrying on the propaganda ,iii favour of State Maternity Hospitals, Will road it, and lu future* be/ 'more ' careful in then handling of 'Statistics. - MVe trust that you can find- further space for some further comments on the subject, which, while of general interest, are of particular interest to the community of Timaru, and its immediate surroundings. The Health. Department says that yew Zealand has h maternal mortality of six in 1000 births, and lliat private maternity hospitals are responsible for it. They don t tell us how many of the took place in private houses and Government hosptals. A correspondent iu a Dunedin paper pf June Id, points out that.' ;there ’ is an uncanny silence about"the Government Hospital figures, and she adds that “those oi us who have inside knowledge know for certain, That there have been as bad epidemics of sepsis in these Government hospitals, as ever occurred at Kelvin.” At the opening of the Geraldine Maternity Hospital, Sir Maui Romare. the Minister for Health (himself a doctor), is reported 10 have made the amazing statement that lie blamed the medical men for the high maternal mortality, and that the modern medical man ancj the modern woman (whether patient nurse, or medical woman, is not clear) were in too much hurry, and too anxious to shirk their responsibilities, and between them they made an un holy mess of it. Being a member of the Government, he did not say that for years the Government had shnkcd its responsibility on the heads of those devoted women, who, being trained nurses, had opened -and run private maternity hospitals for the welfare ol their sisters in travail, sacrificed then youth and health, and like Mr Semple, worked hard all their days and found themselves unable to visit the gieat exhibition at Wembley. God knows, theirs was never a 44-hour week. At Geraldine, the Minister is repotted to have said that the great majority of the maternal deaths were due to sepsis, but in his Palmerston speech, lie had modified it, so that he attributed onethird only to sepsis; which figure is correct, or whether either is correct, we do not know. Ho states at Palmei Stoll that not all private maternity hospitals are suitable for the reception of women. Hence we must con elude that the Health '- Department have, after their first blast, at-private hospitals, decided that while' all are licensed by them, and by iio one else, all are not bad, all are not sinks oi septic infection. In two private maternity hospitals existing m our midst, the number of- mothers confined m the period from August 1909, to June, 1924, was 2208, and the number lost lrom’ septic inlection, was two. Can • Dr Y'alintine,-! ov> any one- else,- show a record ‘as good as that, in any public maternity hospital, in . the . .Dominioii. Moreover, every case was attended bj’ one of those “in too big a liuny medical men,” that the Minister spoke of at Geraldine. The mothers were not left to God, and the midwife, and the assurance’ that Nature would do the rest Such an eminent surgeon as the late Prof. Sheen, of Edinburgh, laid it down as a rule that, when a doctor saw Nature trying to kill a man of woman, it was time to step in, and tiy to stop it. The majority' of the mothers in the homes were in first - cases given “twilight sleep. an in the writer’s experience, nothing lias so revolutionised midwifery practice as the intelligent use of that combination of drugs.« It has entirely done away with any excuse or necessity whatever for premature interference in labour, and has robbed labour of more than half its terrors. Many a mother has wakened up, remembering nothing of the hours and even, m some cases, days of pain, and been shown her baby, and the wonderment of those mother’s eyes, is worth beholding.i No mother’s life has been lost in those 2268 cases from the use of twilight sleep, and we are confident no baby's Tile either. Hero m limaru we have been using twilight sleep since 1909, and can assert, that we are prepared to convert any timid unbelieving medical man or nurse, m a very short time to its use. Its use, ot course, should be confined to administration under medical supervision, ancj in skilled nurses’ hands. H IS . u sed. every day in Timaru as a prehmmaiy to ether administration, bet ore geneial sui-oical work, and has almost entirely, done away with the terror and. struggle, so frequently seen m the old davs of chloroform administration. In i conclusion, Sir, I append the riniaruM registrar’s statistics of lmfteinal deaths occurring m Timaru district, from January Ist, 1910, t° May .list, 1 <)■>.; Total number of births in H-inai-u district during the period January, 1910, to May 31 1924-6986. Total number of deaths—26, or less than 4 per 1000. Total deaths ' from septic infection —15. That is to say tho death rate from septic infection ot all confinements in this district was a little over two in one thousand. ine death rate from the same cause in cases confined in the private maternity hospitals referred to was less Ilian one in one thousand, or less than one lia tof the general septic denth into lor this district. The Health authorities of the Dominion have staled that the great majority of the six in IUUO deaths for tho general Dominion, late arc clue to septic infection, and on that showing the death rate from the same cause hi two private hosp-tals hcre, was less than one quarter of ?ho Dominion rate. No case confined m these two private hospitals lias died ot septic Infection since 1917. Happy Tunm'u, and four times happy private hospitals. I am, etc., MEDICO.