PLUNKET SYSTEM

Hokitika Guardian, 31 January 1930, Page 7

PLUNKET SYSTEM

! PROGRESS IN NEW SOUTH WALES MATERNAL WELFARE. SYDNEY, January 23. No man is assured of a greater welcome to New South Wales than Sir Truby King, whose splendid work for child welfare is as much recognised here as in New Zealand. There was quite a flutter among those interested jin the growth of the Plunket system i when it was learned not long ago that Sir Truby would be in Sydney again so soon and there was a general brush- ' ing up for the baby centres in preparation of his arrival last Thursday. If , growth is synonmous with life, then ; the future looks rosy for the Plunket system in New South Wales. Mothers are attending the centres in increasing numbers, and the whole work is fall- , ing more easily and naturally into the i subdivisions used in the big centres in New Zealand, One can imagine the satisfied look on the face of Sir Truby King when he inspected the latest Australian Mothercraft Centre in Sydney. The organising and planning of this centre was the work of Miss Viga McLean, for several years matron of the Karitane Home at Auckland, which means that it was well done. Miss McLean never loses an opportunity to speak of the work that is done in the Dominion, and the success there is an inspiration to the baby health workers of Sydney. The bright side of the report drawn up for the Federal Government by Dame Janet Campbell, world-famed authority on maternal and child welfare, is her comment on the steady reduction of the infant death rate from 96 per 1000 in the beginning of the century to 52 last year. “It is an achievement to be proud of,” she says. New South Wales is anxious to reduce the death rate even more, and the Plunket system is going to help materially in that direction. When the death rate sinks below that of New Zealand —which is the aim—then New South Wales can be depended upon to boast but at the same time it will always give full credit to New Zealand for introducing a splendid system, and to Sir Truby King in particular. However, the outstanding feature of Dame Janet Campbell’s report is the statement that maternal welfare itt Australia is deplorably deficient, The high maternal mortality is contrasted 1 with a steadily declining infantile mortality. She says that the mortality rate is higher than in England and Wales, and in Ehgland they are satisfied that it is much higher than it should be. Then for every woman who dies as the result of childbirth, many others are injured more or less seriously, and some of them permanently. The resulting loss in health and strength is even more serious than the actual mortality.

The principal suggestion made by Dame Janet Campbell are that pioneer ing work should be unhampered by restraining influences; that there should be freedom to experiment in any direction which offered any hope of success that there was need for greater unity and increased co-operation between individuals and organisations; that although the midwifery nurse would undertake the actual handling of the infant, the doctor should assume the actual responsibility; that medical schools should offer post-graduate opportunities for practical experience in obstetrics in its relation to public health ; that there should be a high standard in practical and theoretical teaching in all States of pupil midwives ; that all training institutions should be under export supervision and that steps should be taken to/secure for the qualified midwife a high professional status and adequate remuneration so as to attract to the practice of midwifery thoroughly welltrained nurses.