The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1930. SAVING THE MOTHERS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18500, 22 February 1930, Page 8

The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1930. SAVING THE MOTHERS.

Although New Zealand is jutiflably proud of its record of having reduced infantile mortality to the lowest percentage in the world, much remains to be done in the research and practical work that is designed to ‘‘give the mother a chance.” Realising the obligations of the State to take the initiative in a campaign that aims at organising a national effort to reduce the maternal deathrate, the Govern ment in August last announced its decision to provide a sum of £50,000 for the provision and equipment of an up-to-date midwifery hospital in connection with the Dominion Medical School at Dunedin. It is pointed out, however, that this grant will not provide anything to endow the professorial chair and provide a capable and progressive teaching staff. Hence the appeal to the public of New Zealand formulated by the New Zealand Obstetrical Society, for a fund of £25,000 as an endowment for the Obstetrical Department of the Dominion ■ medical school. Mr Victor Bonney, the eminent London specialist, who visited New Zealand some time ago, pointed out in a lecture delivered in Dunedin that medicine is divided into three main parts—medicine, surgery and obstetrics. “In your medical school,” Mr Bouney said, “you have a professor of surgery, and a professor of medicine, but no professor of obstetrics. You have no large maternity hospital attached to your general hospital. In other words, obstetrics is not given a proper chance.” Proceeding, Mr Bouney said that New Zealand must realise that as obstetrics is the oldest branch, so it is the most important, because in it is bound up the welfare of the race. “Everyone must take an interest in this,” added this distinguished authority, “because it matters so much to every member of the. community.” In 1928, Sir James Parr, speaking as High Commissioner in London said: “The public of New Zealand had to date subscribed £500,000 to the work of the Plunket Society, and the Government has subsidised this to the amount of £250,000.” The Obstetrical Society of New Zealand now asks for an Endowment of £25,000 to put the Midwifery Department of the Dominion-' Medical School upon a sound and up-to-date footing. This call will be a non-recurring one, and the Society appeals to the public of New Zealand who have so generously supported all efforts for the welfare of infants, to show an equal generosity to a department whose work it is to safeguard the life of mother and infant during the critical periods of maternity. As members of the Obstetrical Society, the medical profession in New Zealand, has given enthusiastic endorsement of the movement no-w being organised throughout New Zealand. In February, 1929, the two following remits concerning the required hospital were passed during the annual B.M.A. Conference in Wellington: “New Zealand Graduates of Medicine assembled at conference in Wellington February 19, 1929, would respectfully urge upon the Government of this country the immediate necessity of establishing an up-to-date obstetrical hospital adjacent to the Dunedin Hospital for the more efficient midwifery training of the future doctors of this Domnion; the members of the New Zealand Obstetrical Society assembled in annual meeting, respectfully urge upon the Government of this Dominion the immediate need of establishing an up-to-date obstetric hospital in connection with the Medical School in order to bring the obsetetric training of the New Zealand graduates into line -with that obtained in the best British Medical Schools, and in order that the New Zealand Medical School may conform with the minimum requirements for midwifery training as laid down by the General Medical Council of Great Britain.” Within the next few days a distinguished member of the medical profession, Dr Doris Gordon, will visit South Canterbury, in support of the Obstetrical Society’s appeal, and it is hoped that all sections of the public will evince interest in, this important movement. Throughout the Empire large sums of money have recently been spent on the improvement of midwifery departments of the various medical schools. Every up-to-date medical school in the Empire now has its own large midwifery hospital, in which medical students are given practical obstetrical instruction. It is obvious, then, that if New Zealand is to reduce maternal mortality to the lowest possible percentage, the foundation of this great advance in medical science must be laid in the medical school. Hence the immense importance of the movement in New Zealand designed to give the science of obstetrics its proper place in the schools of learning where potential members of the medical profession are trained.