TALK TO WOMEN

Hokitika Guardian, 31 January 1931, Page 6

TALK TO WOMEN

SCIENCE OF OBSTETRICS

BY DR MARSHALL ALLAN

CHRISTCHURCH, January 20

Interesting particulars of the maternity hospitals in Europe and America weiy given to an audience of women in the .Municipal Council Chamber yes. terday afternoon by Dr Marshall Allan, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at .Melbourne University, who is touring New Zealand in connexion with the recent appeal for funds to establish a Chair of Obstetrics at Otago University. Dr Allan who was first accorded a civic welcome, said he hoped to see for himself local conditions, and talk (o fiis colleagues in the various districts. It was only a week since lie landed in New Zealand. A little over a year ago lie had made a tour of Europe and America-, and was able to see how the problem of maternal mortality was being tackled. In Scandinavia, which was quoted as the world example in this respect, there was a high slumlord of health and a high standard of training was insisted on for the obstetrical nurse. With a healthy population like that, and good hospitals, there was very little work done outside these institutions themselves.

The inhabitants of Holland did wliat they were told, which made them good patients. Communal dispensaries to the number of sixteen existed in Amsterdam. The course in that country for obstetrical nurses was three years, and they were looked upon as being members of a noble profession. The right to attend maternity cases was closely restricted. It was compulsory for the nurses to undertake Swedish drill, and their health was the subject of groat care during tho period of training. Germany was the one country in Europe which, since the war, had built new hospitals. He saw many examples of Teutonic thoroughness in these institutions. No modern developments had taken place in the hospitals of Britain since the war. hut there was a marked improvement in tlie co-operation between the medical profession and the Ministry of Health. Tn Edinburgh a Chair was being established by private grant for the study of the care of the ehild-

AM ERICA'S GREAT PROBLEMS. in America there was great contamination from the Southern and .Eastern Europeans, and the country had pron.ems such as did not exist elsewhere. The biggest teaching centres for obstetrics were sometimes separated from ibe general hospital and in other eases were part of it. The American bad tried to make the entrance to the hospital like- the lounge of a hotel. Dr Allan said the noise in the corridors was astonishing. Loud speakers blared ■mt raucous orders on every floor, wards. When a patient could not pay for public hospital attention, the local authority had to find the money. In recent years a greater degree of privacy had beem attained. Heights ot luxury such as he had seen in no other country were reached in the private

“When most American women go l r > hospital, they take their husbands with them,’’ said Dr Adams. “The custom is to take a suite. It is a. standard of comfort for which UnAmerican pays the price.” The baby j wards were an exirem ly fine Uaturc of the hospitals. They were built towards the sun, and no one was allowed in them except the nurses, the risk of catarrhal troubles being great. 11l America the work of the nurse in mail i'iiiLy caries was merely to observe. !bus the n rses were practically tt.se--1 ss for country cases. Alter birth the child was handed over to the s teeialisl, and In had been disgusted tu see the amount of artificial feeding. Hi .Montreal, where the '-ysft m was similar to that in the United Stales, CIM •.vns a low charge for confinement. Bates for private rooms commenced L'g a day, with LI per day lor the nurse, £~> for the anesthetic and other charges. The (rills were very j nic y and I lie bumble Briton stood | aghast b'Tore such luxury, .Marble | balls ■did not make fine work, however. In Australia and New Zealand progress was steady and not so rapid. I Obstetrics and gynaecology bad been } taught before in Victoria. but be was the first full-time professor. LEADING THE WAV. “We are leading the way in the training of the student,” he said, “but it won’t take you lung to catch up.” Ante-natal -care was a stiinib- j [ ling-block in both Australia and New Zealand. Most women thought there I was something sinister about it, but | no greater fallacy ever existed. It j was instruction in ordinary personal j hygiene and in the early signs ol j eoiujolications. Talks like that were j supplemented by printed leaflets. | There was nothing in ante-natal care I to frighten a- woman. Economic stress j was having a very had effect on women j in Australia. A more serious thing j than the number of deaths in child- | birth was the proportion of cases of chronic invalidism which followed. : Any woman below par at this stage was Buffering a heavy handicap. He i ( was pleased to see that mortality in j ( childbirth was decreasing in New Zen-1 land : he could not say the same tor i t Australia. { t

. More had reallv been done in Australia and Now Zealand than in other countries. The initiative had come .from rhe medical proiession. which had been backed up by women’s organinatiou'.. Three years ago. at Dune-

din, h:■ had assisted at the launching of the New Zealand Obstetrical Society which had been a tremendous help to the Health Department. Then came the great work last year for the ob-

stetrical appeal, which actually exceeded the amount fixed. The students who were going to Melbourne from the Otago Medical School made him and his colleagues look up to that institution.