More Info →Foxton Maternity Home 1942-1982 Page 42

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was an alternative to closing the hospital:

'To employ two midwives in the district on an on-call basis to deliver babies at the hospital and provide 48 hour in-patient treatment, then make twice daily visits to the patients' homes.'
(Doctor Teppett also mentioned that the hospital was to stay open for Meals-on-Wheels & Ante-Natal classes).

He felt that because of the distance to travel to Levin or Palmerston North, BBAs (Births Before Arrival) could increase for Foxton patients.
The board member for Otaki, Mrs Hazel Blake felt that a serene atmosphere where the father and other children could visit was a very important to a new mother, and that that was more important than the financial aspect.
Although there were further pleas from Doctor Teppett and Mrs Hazel Blake, Doctor Cumming was adamant that he still could not see the justification for keeping the home open. The board had to save money, and some other service would go if that one didn't.
The Palmerston North Hospital board set up a sub-committee to investigate and examine Doctor Teppett's proposal and meet local authority members.

Sub-committee members consisted of:
Dr G Cumming, Dr H Teppett, Mrs M Rendall, the medical superintendent-in-chief Mr K Archer, and the chief executive Mr S Tootle.
The chief nursing officer, Miss PM Persen was seconded onto the sub-committee. They were to report back to the hospital board with their findings.
The chairman of the Palmerston North Hospital Board Doctor A G Cumming quoted, 'Lack of Staff' as the main problem for the forcing of the homes closure, but Mrs P Lash, who was the acting charge midwife at the time, (and staff member for 31 years), was more than sure that the staff numbers were adequate and the so-called staffing shortage was created by the Palmerston North Hospital Board, and the chief nursing officer from Palmerston had re-structured the maternity homes staff in April 1980.

The seven nurse-aids employed at this time, had their hours cut in half, (evidently redundancy payouts were tailored by hours worked, so cutting down the staff's hours could be seen as deliberate) forcing one to leave, because of lack of income. The empty position had then been re-taken. Another nurse-aid had to change her day-time job for night-shift duty to enable her to continue working at the Maternity Home.

Mrs Lash said that in April 1979 every hospital was asked to cut its expenditure by one percent. There had been, "rumblings" that the Maternity Home would close fromla! then on, which created turmoil and insecurity for the staff.

Mrs Lash would have her career cut short, as she was not prepared to travel, and one of the other two midwives Miss JM Nicholson, was going to leave and find another position closer to her home, but Mrs Lash was sure that finding a replacement would not be too much of a problem. She already had an enquiry from a trained midwife who was interested in the charge position,-on hearing about the proposed closure because of supposedly shortage of staff. Apparently no-one had been appointed as charge-nurse) since 1975, but Mrs Lash had quite happily taken over the position and she was more [continued on next page]

Identification

Date

2005