LABOUR LOST

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19987, 12 July 1939, Page 5

LABOUR LOST

DOCTOR GIVES WARNING

OBSTETRICAL TEACHING GRAVE DISSERVICE FEARED NEW STATE SCHEME (Special to Hie Herald.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. That by opening (lie obstetrical teaching hospitals of the- country to all women and to any doctor, the Government was rendering the Dominion a grave disservice, was a contention put forward by Dr. Henry Jeilett, of Christchurch, in an interview yesterday. Dr. Jeilett, who was for seven years consultant to the Health Department in obstetrical matters, said that by bringing the obstetrical teaching hospitals, such as St. Helens', into the social security maternity benefits scheme, the Government was undoing the work of the last 14 years to reduce the maternal mortality in New Zealand.

It was true, commented Dr. Jcllett, that the Government had not turned private hospitals into teaching institutions. It had merely done the opposite and turned teaching institutions into private hospitals. Thus a return had been made to the state of affairs from which Australia made a determined effort to emerge in 1929 and the work of all those who had tried to reduce maternal mortality in New Zealand during tiro last 14 years had been wrecked. Clinical Experience “Clinical teaching and experience is an essential part of all obstetrical instruction; without it, theoretical teaching is of small value,” he continued. "To throw open the teaching hospitals to all women and to any doctor is to make clinical instruction impossible. “The Government may have made an admirable democratic gesture, but if it cannot bring itself to recognise that even a Labour Government is governed toy facts, it. will some day find itself described as a society' for the promotion of maternal mortality ”

Dr. Jeilett suggested that the attitude of the Government towards the effect of its action on teaching had been exactly similar to its attitude on the whole to the medical profession. “It has not consulted people capable of judging tile effect of the act" said Dr. Jeilett. "I suggest that it did not even consult any of its own advisers as to the effect of this action on medical education, in particulai such men as the Director-General of Health, Dr. M. 11. Watt, or Dr. T. L. Paget, who is largely responsible for measures which have resulted in lowering the maternal death rate in New Zealand, or Professor J. B. Dawson, Professor of Midwifery, at Dunedin."