COUNTRY WANTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 September 1920, Page 5

COUNTRY WANTS.

| DOCTORS ANp NURSES. j ——. 1 BETTER SERVICE PROMISED, (By Wire.—Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, Last Night. The need lor medical and nursing assistance in the back-blocks was discussed in the House of Representatives when the estimates of the Public Health Department, were under consideration. Mr. Jennings (Waitumo) was specially emphatic in urging the Minister to give attention to the hardships suffered by settlers. Doctors and nurses ought to be placed within reach of the backblock farmers, lie said, since it was impossible for these people to reach the cities and towns at short notice. Tragic sufferings were caused sometimes by the lack of skilled assistance at times of accident, illness, or child birtli. OLher members supported Mr. Jennings heartily. The Minister (Mr. Parr) assured tlie House that the matter had not been neglected. The department w»9 training midwives in St. Helen's hospitals as fast as possible. About 120 trained women were being produced by the hospitals each year,-and it was a condition of free training in many cases that those women should work for a time in the back-blocks. He realised that thesij maternity nurses ought to have cottages in suitable positions, with two or three attached rooms that could bo used by patients. The department was increasing the number of district nurses in country districts, and was endeavouring to diffuse the benefits of the. State nursing service right through the backblock areas. The provision of doctors in the country districts was not easy, added the Minister. The Government apparently must be prepared to find doctors, assign them to districts, and pay their salaries, since suitable men could not be retained in country districts in any other way. He did not think Parliament would grudge the expenditure. The Government was training many young men in the medical school by means of bursaries, and lie thought it should be a condition of this free medical education that young men, when they bad completed their courses, should work in the back-blocks for a certain period, Local bodies must be prepared to help in the provision of medical and nursing facilities. Mr. Young (Waikato) asked the Minister to push ahead with the policy he had outlined. The establishment of small cottage hospitals in the charge of competent nurses in country districts would be of enormous advantage to settlers. Mr. Young and other members urged that the way to keep nurses in the country districts was to pay tliem better. The important work entrusted to them must be made worth their | while in a financial sense. They tended 'at present to move into the towns.