OUR BABIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2676, 4 December 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

OUR BABIES.

. (By “Hygeia.”) is Published under the auspices of the Society for the Promotion of the lc! Health of Women and Children. 10 ’ , 1— —- • The following excellent resume of 10 the work of the Dunedin Branch of the 39 Society was given recently by Mrs J. ... H. Hosking—the first.local President ■ , and now the Hon. Treasurer. The oc--1 casion was the meeting of the Duu’e- " din Hospital Saturday Association, and we derive our report from what ap- * peared in the local papers, supplement. I ed by a few corrections and additions \ Q which the speaker has kindly supplied, is ' KARITANE BAY HOSPITAL. ■h I have been -asked to tell this aneetf, ing something about the. work being ‘P done by the Society for the Health of ■ u Women and Children,, chiefly as re■d gards the Karitane Home. As you know—or perhaps you do not know — I s the institution was originally opened two and a-half years ago as a Licensed r “ Home as a protest against the method of inspection existing for licensed homes in Dunedin, of which there were )r between 50 and 60. The babies in -, r these “Homes” were nearly all illegitimate children, and in consequence v were considered to be inferior to the children.of married people—that is, cle--5t serving less care. Taking the most j 1" forlorn, miserable, and wasted speoiN mens to be found in Dunedin, we set 19 out to prove that even these children were not necessarily foredoomed to ie death or misery—that for the most *5 part, if, given ■proper care and attention, .they were almost as capable of l " growing up into healthy men and wo--111 men as the more fortunate children of 91 manned parents, a pel that it was in the ’ interest of the State that this should 11 he the case. Treated as they were, a tu percentage might die from ignorance or neglect on the part of those looking after them, but a much larger perf” centage would grow up deficient, in vitality and otherwise unfit to fight the " battle of life, and would soon become 3 * a charge on the State. This is stat- (* ing the case from the purely economic side, and leaving common humanity ’ n out of . the question. THE ORIGINAL HOME, it We ran this Home for eight or nine 0 months with the most conspicuous suc>t- cess. The health of the children was 0 excellent—so much so that we found ■ e ¥ our reputation for caring for those children so well was bringing us nothe ing but sick babies, and. some very ill indeed, and that our Home was gradually coming to be regarded as a hospital. We found it a necessity to ha\'e a trained nurse as matron, there being very little mere “mothering” to do, but a great deal of real sick nursing. When the new Infant Liie Protection Act came into force in January, d 1907, the reason for our existence as k a Licensed Home ceased to exist, as, if owing a good deal to the representations of our 'Society, the licensed-homes o were placed under the inspection of the e matron of the Industrial School, with i- a trained nurse to visit the homes, ino stead of being merely under police inh spection. You must forgive me for goti iiig so much into detail, but there has t been so much misapprehension about >1 our Home that I am glad of this opu portunity of publicly- contradicting t some of the statements made. J PANDERING TO VICE. s One statement was that wo were q “encouraging vice” by taking such care of the babies free of charge, thereo by encouraging the mothers and fath-’j P ei-s to get rid, all too easily, of their 1 responsibilities. This was a preposterY ous statement. Maintenance was. paid 5 for every child in the Home on exact- _ ly the same scale _as in the other 1 homes, and we were paid in full in many cases. I was told by a -member l of our Committee, who had had much 3 experience in this task of collecting, 3 that we had done exceptionally well 1 in getting so much money in. The j other statement was to the effect that b the Society were left with 'these babies j on their hands indefinitely. This was - absolutely incorrect. Every child that - was with us was either provided by its } relations or by ourselves with-a suitb able home. In one or two-cases the : children had to he placed in the Indusb trial' School. We thought of closing > the Home altogether early in 1908, - owing to lack of funds, hut were faced > with this fact—our Home was full of i sick babies. We were continually ask-. [•• fed to take in more. , - ‘ A A BABY HOSPITAL. ‘ If we closed there was nowhere where the children could get skilled atten- . tion, as the General Hospital does not . take in children under two years. BeL sides, while some were gravely ill, a great many cases that were brought to us were children in an ailing condition, brought on by improper feeding, want of fresh air, and cleanliness, etc. and were not, properly speaking, ordinary hospital" cases; yet we were assured by doctors that the babies would die • if not taken in by us. We decided to • make an effort to keep the Home go-; l ing. We first thought of a Saturday :> collection, but were asked by the Hos- - pital Saturday Association not to do » this, as they thought it would interi fere with their collection, and if we , would forego this the Association would i let us have a share of their collection, i We decided upon a house-to-house -*>l- : lection of Dunedin and suburbs, mclud. : ing Port Chalmers. This resulted in ; £SOO being raised. . I . OPEN TO ALL. > The Home was no longer for illegi- [ timate children, but for -all and any l who cared to send ailing babies to us. i How much, the want of this Home has >. been felt may be seen by the fact that' our Home has practically always as - many as 12 inmates —the greatest numi her at one time being 18. Every child , is paid for, but we have had to adopt a sliding scale of charges, according •to the means of the parents. We have filled up -the Home with the greatest possible regard to economyl speak authoritatively on this subject, as. I personally had a great deal to dlo -with , it at the start. We have -a trained nurse - as matron, a trained nurse as staff nurse- to relieve the matron, and b six probationers, a, laundress, and a general servant. The probationers are' ■ paid at the rate of 5s a week, and at the end of 12 months’, training, upon passing an examination set by our me- ’ dical officers, they receive our certifi- “ cate and are called “Karitane” Nurses; They are. then fully fitted to ; : take' responsible positions as children’s ■ nurses ’in private houses. : We are continually 'asked for - these . nurses., At 1 present we have two trained: nurses, in ■ the Home receiving the sp eoi al / train - - ' ' ' ' ' Wf4 flft&L v-.-'V , '* 4$ I- jkO'ri-.rVV'U ‘

ing to qualify them for positions in Auckland and .Christchurch as extra Plunket Nurses. We receive 10 guineas for their training from the branches of the society. Within the last two days we have been asked to take | in' two ailing babies from Canterbury. NOT OVER-STAFFED. Sick babies require much more attention than adult patients, and that is why, to the superficial observer, it may seem,that wo have more help than is necessary. It must he remembered that an eight-hour system necessitates three nurses for every one on duty at a given time.' We have not arranged those details from an amateur’s point of view. We have all sections of the community represented on our Committee, and have had in the arrangements of the Karitane Home the inestimable benefit of the experience and advice of trained nurses, members of the Salvation Army, women who have worked at other kindred philanthropic work in this city, and ordinary housewives like myself, who have had years of experience in housekeeping. This Home is run on the same lines as a hospital, where it is necessary that the best conditions must exist for the sick babies, and at the .same time we must provide an object-lesson to the general public who visit iis. THE VISITORS. I may bore mention that we have an average of 200 visitors a month, mainly mothers, nurses, and girls, who are given every possible opportunity for learning practically just what a baby needs in order that it may thrive. Wo have lectures at the Home for mothers to attend, and our Girls’ Guild does splendid work, some mothers coming daily to the Home to help the nurses to look after the babies who are well enough to be- carried about, handled, and given the “mothering” that counts fo-r so much and which they can -get in their own homes. This lias overcome a great difficulty for us, the j nurses not having time to -give ade- | quate attention in this direction to ; each individual child. J AFTER-CARE. I When the babies leave the Home the I mother can always call in the Plun- ' ket Nurse to help her to carry on the ' treatment received at the Home until j she -is quite capable of managing by J herself. Indeed, throughout the stay | of babies in the Home the mothers are I encouraged, to come and nurse them, and to thus learu practically what is I needed. Further, the Matron at 'Karitane always communicates with the Plunket Nurse when any baby is about to-leave the institution, and thus the continuity of the whole system is established. The ‘Society leave no stone unturnedto promote and encourage breast-feed-ing. Failing this, they advocate the use of Humanised Milk —that is, cow’s milk properly modified so as to be adapted to the needs of the baby, arid the results more than justify its use. The Society have been able to arrange with the T". and P. Dairy Company for its manufacture and distribution, theSociety paying half the salary of the women • employed in its preparation. This department is under the direction of the Plunket Nurse. One word I would like to say about the Comitnttee. We do not pretend to organise the work and get experts trained to help the women of Dunedin in the feeding and general care of their children. W e do not pretend to know any more than they do; we don’t. But we most of,us know from our experience the want: <u expert advice, and we have every confidence that our Plunket Nurses are specially qualified to give this advice.