APPEALS CLASH

Hokitika Guardian, 21 March 1930, Page 5

APPEALS CLASH

AN EXPLANATION

(Bj Telegraph—Per Press Association,

STRATFORD, 3'larcli 21. Commenting upon a statement made

by the Chairman of Marlborough Conn

ty Council that the Obstetrical Society’s appeal was inopportune, as the Council had been asked to launch a cancer campaign first, Dr Doris Gordon (Secretary of the Obstetrical Society) said that far from being inopportune, the appeal was most urgent. Seventy-five infants were horn daily in the Dominion, and two daily aie still-lorn, representing the loss of valuable lives. As a result of these births, one mother died in every second or third day. As these maternal deaths concern women in the prime of 1i 1 o with young children dependent on them, no thinking man or woman could hold that the midwifery appeal

was inopportune. She said in fact it was one of the utmost urgency, as funds for the new professor’s salary had to be iound this year.

The standard of midwifery work in New Zealand for the next two decades would be determined by the response of the appeal. A new appointment must he made tins year and the people of tho Dominion have the decision in their own hands, whether they will have- a firstgrade teacher at a first grade salary, or a third-grade man at a third-grade

salary. Dr Gordon, when asked about the statements regarding over-lapping with the cancer appeal, said that from the point of view of history, not to mention tiie question of which appeal was the better investment for public money, the obstetrical appeal had a prior claim, having been pending since 1927. T lie London specialist, Vie tor Bonney, had been brought to the Dominion in 1928 to specially prepare the way for tins appeal As far as she knew, the cancer campaign idea only originated with the visit of SampsonHandlery. in February of last year. “Cancer authorities had asked us to defer our appeal in Canterbury,” said Dr Gordon, “but in view of the fact that we needed only one fifth of the sum the Canterbury Area Cancer Committee was asking and had only two months to get the money all over New Zealand, we were unable tc defer our appeal.”