Making Motherhood Safe

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 900, 18 February 1930, Page 8

Making Motherhood Safe

OBSTETRICS CHAIR NEEDED IN your medical school you have a professor of surgery and a professor of medicine, hut no professor of obstetrics. You have no large maternity hospital attached to your general hospital. In other words, obstetrics is not given a proper chance,” said Mr. Victor Bonney, a noted surgeon of Great Britain, during a visit to New Zealand in 1928. “You must realise that as it is the oldest branch, so it is the most important, because with it is bound up the welfare of the race. Everyone must take an interest in this because it matters so much to every member of the community,” he added.

A T the birth of every child two lives are at stake. Although it is true that today not many mothers die at child-birth, what mortality there is can be materially reduced. But a very considerable number of women are injured in the process and are never the same afterward. To make motherhood safer and to obviate risk as far as possible all that is highest in medical skill must be practised. In order to give medical students the fullest knowledge of modern obstetrics and to promote research into postnatal diseases, medical men and others have formed the New Zealand Obstetrical Society, w T hich has the co-opera-tion of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association. The society is working with the direct object of establishing a chair of obstetrics at Otago University. In conjunction with the council of the University and the Dean of the Medical School it has been striving to secure the improvements Mr. Bonney indicated as urgent necessities. The first necessity is an up-to-date materuity hospital, and the second essential is an endowment fund, the interest of which would provide salaries for a full-time professor, , assistants, and also some revenue for research purposes. APPEAL TO DOMINION An earnest appeal to the people of New Zealand for generous financial support is being made today by the society. Speaking on the work to be done in New Zealand Mr. Bonney said the Obstetrical Society was going to be a very big thing. The society in England began 70 years ago. and 70 years hence the people would take off their hats to the pioneers of the movement here. Laymen could help the movement a great deal. In the first place the profession went to them for money, and also for encouragement and understanding. By helping research in midwifery and the diseases of women one was not only doing a good deed in general, but was also, maybe, helping some woman whom he loved to come through a confinement, thanks to the knowledge and skill available partly through a layman’s talents and gifts, and without which it might not be

available. This was a thing that touched all men who honoured women, and he appealed to them to help the New Zealand Obstetrical Society in the work it was doing. This enlargement in the maternity hospital system was an Important thing for everyone, continued Mr. Bonney. It enabled students to obtain a wonderful training in midwifery. This training was most important, because the welfare of coming generations of women depended on it, and people in all walks of life should take a great interest in turning out men qualified to look after their daughters, granddaughters and great - granddaughters in the future. FIELD OF RESEARCH Then there was the question of research. They knew that certain illnesses were concomitants of childbirth sometimes and these were occasionally very difficult to deal with. A great deal of research still required to be done. For instance there was the disease called eclampsia, which killed a considerable number of women all over the world every year. At present the cause of it completely baffled them. Then they were up against the question of teaching all the students and the supervision of the maternity hospitals, so as to keep them up to the highest level. The problem confronting them was that of finance. In the United Kingdom money had to be raised by voluntary subscriptions, Mr. Bonney said. Since the sugeon’s visit the Government has passed a grant for the proposed obstetrical hospital and the public of New Zealand is asked to provide the necessary endowment fund. “We do not want any panic to be caused about the obstetrical efficiency of the present practitioners,” the society emphasises, “but in view of the urgent needs for this money, the other kindred health claims that are present before the people of New Zealand and the financial state of the Dominion, we feel we cannot present the claims of our appeal too strongly. The whole truth is therefore presented to you for propaganda, but we specially ask you to avoid any panic or distrust of present doctors.”