W.D.F.F. Women Are Concerned In All Matters Of Health

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 64, 3 July 1950, Page 5

W.D.F.F. Women Are Concerned In All Matters Of Health

“As women we are deeply concerned in all matters of health—the need for more maternity hospitals, adequate hospital accommodation, more research in medicine,” said Mrs J. R. Haldane, Dominion president of the Women’s Division of the Federated Farmers. She was addressing delegates to the Dominion conference of the division in Wellington.

It was claimed that in social services, New Zealand led the world and in a country so richly blessed, the standard of health should be high. Plunket babies attracted favourable' comment from overseas visitors, but how did the health of the Dominion adult population compare with that of other countries? Closely allied with health was education, she said. This, too, was women’s concern. It had been advocated that there be a return to the three R’s of former days. But who would deny that today education had progressed and was available to every child? Surely country mothers must bless the Correspondence Schools which today offered the outback children and handicapped children excellent teaching in which personal relationship between teacher and child was a special feature. “Give the child the best, stimulate his interest, widen'his outlook, teach him to be a good citizen, not 'only in his own small circle, out a good world citizen. Teach him the Value of human relationship. Had we to deal with only material things perhaps the three R’s would suffice, but man does not live bv those alone. “Let us as women and mothers see to it that, beginning in the home, things of the spirit are given their rightful place,” said Mrs Haldane. “We as mothers realise the education begins in the home. There the child finds love and security, two essentials to its development.”