INFANT MORTALITY

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 42, 13 November 1926, Page 7

INFANT MORTALITY

STILL MORE WORK TO BE DONE GOVERNMENT CONDUCTING RESEARCH Dominion Special. Auckland, November 12. . The progress New Zealand has made in reducing the infantile mortality rate was referred to to-day. by the Minister of Health (Hon J. A. Young) at the opening of the Plunket Society’s new headquarters in Symonds Street. In 1907, he said, when Sir Truby King was a student of social economy, there were 8.88 deaths in the first year of life for every 100 births. Moved to action by the seriousness of the position, Sir Truby King founded the Plunket Society with one nurse. The movement, had since grown until today there were no fewer than 60 branches of the society throughout the Dominion, employing 110 nurses, and last year the mortality rate in the first year of life had been reduced to 3.99 per 100 births. That was a wonderful record, unsurpassed anywhere in the world, and was . achieved through. the . great Plunket plan conceived by Sir Truby King some twenty years ago, and since copied by every civilised country in the, globe. That was the greatest possible tribute and compliment that could be paid to Sir Truby, King. . While the Dominion had progressed so. far, there was yet more' to be done, particularly in the direction of lowering the death rate in the first four weeks of life. Statistics'’showed that litle .alteration had taken place with respect to this rate during the past twenty vears. Babies to the number of 744 died last year in. the first month after ■ birth', and "the speaker’ had the assurance of medical experts that at least one third, of, those /children were born healthy. To save those-liv.es for the State was obviously a worth while task,'.and-with this object in yte.w. the Health Department : was. pursuing certain lines of research. To .solve the problem, was the. more urgeitt because it-was Closely allied to. maternal mortality., ■ . - - It'was not. the business of ; the Plunket Society to .. treat : diseases, Mr. Young Continued. , That was-a . matter for. the -doctors'. The. .society’s function was .to advise .mothers through its nurses, of - such matters as. errors in diet .and nutrition, and of -those,omissions or unwise actions which weakened the ’constitution, and made the child less able to ..resist disease. In this, work the society had jthe fullest sympathy •of the Government. During the year ended March ,31,. 1927, the Government subsidies to .the Plunket Society for expenditure in nurses’ salaries,..etc., would amount to .£15,000, while in addition £ll,OOO would be granted in the way of subsidies to Karitane babies hospitals throughout the Dominion,, making a total of, £26,000 voted by Parliament last session for a great, educational work---not charitable, not ' philanthropic, but humanitarian. (Applause.) .Mr. Young paid a tribute to the work, of the Hon. George Fowlds when, as Minister of Education, he introduced the present Hospitals-Act.in-to Parliament in 1908.- New Zealand, said Mr. Young, • possessed one of '-the finest hospital'systems in the world, and it -was' a pleasure for him to' be associated on the same platform with the man who introduced it's basic principle and with Dr. T. H A. Valintine, the first Director of Health under that regime. <■ ■ ■'