MATERNITY HOSPITALS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 77, 22 June 1927, Page 13

MATERNITY HOSPITALS

DOING GOOD WORK ENOUGH FOR ALL NEEDS (Prom Our Own Correspondent .) HAMILTON, Tuesday. At present St. Helen’s Maternity Hospitals are administered by the Department of Health. There are 50 maternity hospitals under the control of hospital boards and 200 private maternity hospitals in the Dominion, said the Hon. J. A. Young last night. The Department of Health exercised very close surveillance. New Zealand now had all the hospitals needed, and was able to support them without too great a burden. In cases where small maternity hospitals were built in the country districts it was essential they should be retained for the purpose and not allowed to drift into general hospitals, a tendency which had been marked in the past. Continuing, the Minister said the multiplication of small general hospitals was unwarranted. In addition to providing maternity hospitals the Health Department had done much by the establishment of ante natal clinics. The efforts of the department had resulted in a reducton of maternal mortality from 6.48 per thousand births in 1920 to 4.21. Infant mortality in New Zealand for the first-year life was the lowest of any country in the world.

Improved ante natal work would be carried out. There was greater maternal mortality in the country than town districts, the ratio being 80 to 50.