The Wanganui Chronicle. “NULLA DIES SINE LINEA.” TUESDAY, MAY 6, 1924. MATERNAL MORTALITY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19006, 6 May 1924, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. “NULLA DIES SINE LINEA.” TUESDAY, MAY 6, 1924. MATERNAL MORTALITY

It has been well said that the creation of a health conscience proceeds slowly, and that viewed from certain standpoints civilisation is undeniably costly. Associated with its social refinements are numerous respectable and unrecognised evils that are menacing the health and life of innumerable individuals. Many writers have noted the fact that savagery and civilisation in its ruder stages are free from certain diseases that seem to be fostered by civilised man’s dietetic stupidities and mode of life. It is, however, not alone the outstanding scourges such as tuberculosis, cancer and leprosy that are taking undue toll. Our own Minister of Health has just opened the eyes of New Zealanders to the loss, presumably largely preventable, New Zealand is sustaining through maternal mortality. It is New Zealand’s boast that her infantile death-rate is the lowest in the world, and the praiseworthy means by which this creditable record has been achieved have been the subject of welldeserved and widespread commendation. But the disquieting figures disclosed by the Minister of Health, revealing as they do a very high percentage of maternal mortality, seem to suggest that while so much has been done, and done successfully, to save the little ones, the safety of the mothers has been overlooked. One 'third of all the births take place in | private hospitals, the Minister says, and a third of the deaths of mothers occur from puerperal septicaemia, a most dangerously contagious disease, which is much more likely to be met with in private than in public hospitals. A commission is preparing a report on certain cases of puerperal septicaemia in Auckland private hospitals, and ihe Christchurch Star suggests that it would be a good thing were the Commission to find It practicable to

deal generally with the subject in its finding. It may bo that in order to do this effectively the Commission would require to conduct a much more extensive and comprehensive inquiry, but that it is highly desirable that it should be done we have no doubt. It would, for example, be interesting to have statistics regarding maternal mortality in relation to the growth of private hospitals in the Dominion. As the Star says, to the poor and to the middle-class people, to a greater extent than to the well-to-do, maternity homes have been a great convenience, and indeed an absolute necessity. In theory, they have stood for first-class medical attention and skilled nursing; while their practical benefits have extended far beyond mother and child in the direction of relieving the household from the anxiety and inconvenience and expense associated with the bringing in of nurses to private homes, whore there could be no proper facilities for nursing, and very often no accommodation for the nurse herself. That the private maternity home has come to stay there can be no denying, but it is imperative that everyone of these institutions should be required to conform to the standard of equipment and efficiency demanded in the interests of their patients. In this connection, our southern contemporary expresses the opinion that it would be unreasonable to provide, by Act of Parliament, that an inquest should be held in respect to every death in a private maternity home, or even private hospital. The Minister of Health has shown himself to be keenly alive to the gravity of the situation, and ’he is not likely to rest content until means have been devised to effectively lower the high and unenviable death percentage to which he has drawn attention. In the meantime the public will look to the Department of Health for the most careful exercise of its powers in the matter of the licensing and inspection of maternity homes.