CHILD WELFARE

Hokitika Guardian, 15 August 1928, Page 4

CHILD WELFARE

SIR- TRUBY KING’S TOUR

ABROAD. AUCKLAND, Aug. 13. Sir Truby King, Director of Child Welfare, returned by the Niagara after an absence of six months, during which he carried out personal observations of child welfare methods employed in England and on the Continent. He was accompanied on the trip by his daughter.

“Since I left England nine years ago great progress has been made on linos already adopted in New Zealand with regard to child welfare,” said Sir Truby King on his arrival. “.Especially is this so in London.” I It was n London in 1917 that Sir Truby King founded the Mothercraft Training Centre at EarPs Court, thereby transplanting the Blanket system from New Zealand to the Old Country. The centre has since been transferred to Cromwell House, Highgate, one of the highest and most beautiful sites in London Suburbs. Since the return to England of tho Duchess of York on the conclusion of her Dominion tour an effort lias been made under her patronage to raise voluntarily £25,000 to extend the hospital buildings, and develop a very important centre for the training of infant nurses, on lines of tho Karitane nurses. This sum has now been almost realised, and a contract of £21,000 has already been let, to that tho progress of Plunket work through England is more than assured. “Great progress has been made in the United Kingdom in the last ten years-in practical work in the interests of mother and child,” said Sir Truby, “but it is recognised that still more remains to be done in the next decade, especially in the direction of reducing maternal mortality and the deaths of infants in the first few weeks of life. The maternal mortality and tho death rate among new-born infants in New Zealand was still nearly double the rates on those localities where the very best means were available for the solution of the problem. anil even there the rates were higher than they should be. Leading English authorities were greatly impressed by the high qualifications required of obstetricians in the Netherlands, Denmark, and -Sweden, and the remarkable efficiency and organisation of midwives anil midwifery services. It was through these factors that the pronounced reduction in maternal and nco-natal mortality in those countries had been brought about.” Sir Truby King had intended spending at least a month in America, but at the end of nearly seven weeks' sojourn on the Continent, was obliged I to return quickly by way of Vancouver, in order to arrive in New Zealand in time for the Biennial General Confer-

ence of the Plunket Society, which takes place in Wellington in a fortnight.