Karitanes, Shun!

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23246, 6 July 1945, Page 4

Karitanes, Shun!

A statement yesterday by flic Minister of Industrial Manpower, the Hon. A. McLagan, reveals that Mr McLagan’s alert department, with the assistance ol the Plunket Society, has caught up with Karitane nurses accepting longterm engagements which have, according to Mr McLagan. made them virtually nursemaids in that they have been looking after l'"altliy children. In future, nursing engagements will be limited to four weeks, and. to make sure of this Mr McLagan’s department is compiling a complete register ol Karitane nurses. Henceforward these nurses will be sent where they are required; the “manpower ’ has caught them, and those who are surviving as. the remnants of a lost tribe beyond

official control will be officially mustered. The idea that Karitane nurses should be equitably distributed among the population is sound, but the Government could have given dose alienlion to (Im problem of providing assistance for nmtlmrs long before this, and it could hate done so in many other ways. The disfribution of Karitane nurses will have small ameliorating effect on the problem. It should require something less miraculous and exhausting than the bearing of. a child Io convince members ol lhe Government ami male members ot lhe Manpower Deparlment that lhe most important industry in lhe country is the most neglected. I'.vcrv mother in the country should Im sure of assistance in lhe home, for much more than four weeks after the birth of a child. If the rearing of children were shorn ol some oi iis rigours there would he lccomplaint about lhe birth-rale. I liis a question the. Government should lime. Surely it is not beyond lhe ability oi the Gahinel. with lhe assistance, of outside, advisers, to make domestic assistance available to all mothers of larger families at least. The pursuit of a few simglv placed Karitane nurses is a laughable appro,ieh to the (luestion.