A NATIONAL APPEAL

Waikato Independent, Volume XXX, Issue 2307, 6 March 1930, Page 3

A NATIONAL APPEAL

N.Z. OBSTETRICAL SOCIETY,

£25,000 WANTED.

In connection with the appeal nowbeing made throughout New Zealand, formulated by the N.Z. Obstetrical Society (N.Z. Branch 8.M.A.) for a fund of £25,0t>0 as an endowment for the Obstetrical Department of the Dominion Medical School, the following briefly-stated facts clearly set out the need for §uch an appeal:— „

Throughout the Empire large sums of money have recently been spent on the improvement of the Midwifery Departments of the various medical schools.

This expenditure is a national effort to reduce 'the maternal death rate, the still-birth rate, and to lessen the Jncidence of disabilities supervening upon child birth.

Every up-to-date medical school in the Empire now has its own large midwifery hospital, in which the ‘students live in residence during the time of their practical obstetrical instruction. The New Zealand school to date has no such hospital. All the best medical schools have well-paid Professors of Midwifery. Sydney and Melbourne Schools pay their Obstetrical Professors £2OOO per annum. For the last 20 years New Zealand has been playing its lecturer £2OO per annum, and its tutor in practical midwifery £75 per annum.

Thanks to private endowments the departments of surgery and medicine in the N.Z. Medical School have been brought thoroughly up-to-djite. Improvements have also lately been effected in the departments of Anatomy, Bacteriology and Pathology. For lack of funds there.has been no capital improvement in the Midwifery Department for the last'2o years. ,

In 1928, after the visit of the London specialist, Mr Victor Bonney, to this Dominion, Government granted the sum of £SOO per annum to enable a slight improvement to be effected in the salaries of the teaeherg of widwifery and gynaecology. In August, 1929, the Government announced they would grant the sum of £50,000 for the erection of an up-to-date midwifery hospital in connection with the Dominion Medical School. This grant will not provide anything for teaching salaries, and suck a hospital will be useless without a good head.

The present teacher of midwifery is ictiring in 12 months * time. By July, 1930, tlio Otago University Council will be forced to advertise for a new Professor of Obstetrics. Unless an endowment fund is secured meanwhile, they will be compelled to advertise the post at a salary only a third of that paid in Australia for similar responsibilities.

There are many expenses in running such a department, apart from the Professor’s salary, and if New Zealand is not to lag behind'the rest of the Empire in the teaching of Obstetrics, an endowment fund of £25,000 for the Obstetrical Department will have to be

found. This, plus subsidy, w T ill allow asalary of £2OOO to the Professor and some £SOO for junior assistants.

In 1928, Sir James Parr said that: “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 footings This call will be a non-recurring one, ahd we appeal to the public of TXevt Zealand, who have so generously supported all efforts for the welfare of infants, to show- an equal generosity to Jfcdepartment whose work it is to safeguard the life of mother and infanfcduring pregnaney and child birth.