MATERNITY HOSPITALS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2056, 29 April 1907, Page 4

MATERNITY HOSPITALS.

A FOURTH OPENED

On the occasion of opening the St. Helons Maternity Hospital ill Battersea stroet, Sydenham, on April lGtli, the Hon. George Fowlds stated that the institution was the fourth of the ■kind in the colony, there being now one in each of the principal centres. The St. Helens Hospital at Wellington was opened in June, 1905; that at Dunedin in October, 1905; and that’ at Auckland in June, 1900. These homes were the natural development of the policy begun by legislation in 1901. In 1905 the late Mr. Seddon issued his famous pamphlet on infant life preservation, showing the necessity of doing something to improve the chances of a child’s livjn„ a fter being born. No fewer than 564 births had taken place within the walls of the three St. Helens Hospitals, and it was a testimony to the efficiency of the system of treatment that only three deaths had been recorded out of that large number In addition, 154 confinements had |, eell attended by the institution nurses outside the homes. The Government had issued thirteen nurses’ certificates to those who were trained in the institutions and were qualified to practice. Eight hundred and ninety midwives had been placed on the register, 104 of these holding special certificates. Last year Parliament had passed the Private. Hospitals Act, which was an extension of the principle contained in the measures already enumerated. It provided for the inspection of private hospitals, and at the end of tlio present year no licenses for such hospitals would be issued except to qualified practitioners, or to certificated nurses or midwives. The St. Helens Maternity Hospitals were not in any sei-so charitable institutions. It was expected that they would come within measur able distance of paying their cost. The three already running, although not having quite reached that point, came within a comparatively small distance of recouping the expense ol maintenance. Already they were paying tlio amount of salaries involved.