The Waipawa Mail. Published Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Saturday, August 13, 1904. CHILD-LIFE PRESERVATION.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXV, Issue 4697, 13 August 1904, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail. Published Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Saturday, August 13, 1904. CHILD-LIFE PRESERVATION.

We have received from the Premier’s office the second memorandum issued by Mr Seddon on child-life preservation. The subject is one that has attracted a deal of public attention. Mr Seddon makes a strong point of the fact that there is a lamentable loss of infant-life chiefly through ignorance, and he holds that it is the duty of the State to assist in giving whatever teaching is required, so that women may have a thorough knowledge of their responsibilities in life. He says; “The machinery necessary in one direction is at hand in our hospitals, where , large numbers of girls could be trained and certificated as nurses. In the j Mother .Country, as well as in the colonies, relative to population there is not sufficient nursing power, and at present there is no proper provision for training and educating extra nurses. The hospitals and homes only retain sufficient nurses for their own requirements, consequently their number is limited, and the great population outside of the hospital is ill supplied. Any girl who desired and who was certificated as to fitness should be allowed (subject to proper conditions) to enter a hospital for the purpose of learning the profession of nurse at the expense of the State. It would, in the last analysis, prove a first-class investment, and would not cost more than £SO for each person—the return would be tenfold. It is fixed actuarially that the capital value of an average adult is £3OO. Whilst trained nurses would be of great service to the country, they would become the indirect means of disseminating valuable and useful knowledge amongst the people, and they would themselves make excellent wives and mothers. The training of nurses is part of the practical side of the question, but, as already stated, all persons at an early age, and especially girls, should be educated in their duties and responsibilities. This instruction should begin in the schools and colleges, and I would suggest the introduction of a general article on the subject in the reading-books of the higher standards. The Church, too, could do much. In fact, all the leaders and teachers of humanity should engage in the noble duty. The work of the nurse is of the highest character, and if the opinion of the leading men of the Empire were taken it would be that there was not a sufficient number of trained nurses relative to the several populations. In the absence of well-trained and conscientious nurses the medical skill is largely discounted and too often nullified altogether.” Although Mr Seddon, in his first memorandum on the subject, made a number of proposals which are quite outside the functions of the State, and which Parliament would not care to sanction, still there is much common-sense in his remarks as

to the necessity of nurses being thoroughly trained to their work, and if that result can be obtained by reasonable 'assistance from the State it will be money spent in a useful direction.