Elizabeth Grace Neill - Contributions

Contributions

Neill came up with the idea to make a requirement for nurses to be registered to be able to practice. She knew this would protect the public and also the profession from unqualified people mal-practicing. She helped Dr. McGregor to draft a bill for a Nurse’s Registration Act, and in 1901 it was finally passed by Parliament and was the first bill of its kind. The bill required nurses to have three years of training, a state examination, and a state register. While this fixed the problems with general practicing nurses, it still did not require anything from midwives. It was imperative that something be established to train midwives in New Zealand. However, since there were only a few schools in New Zealand that trained for midwifery, this was a more challenging bill to pass. It was then put on Neill to create not only a curriculum for the midwifery training, but to also establish state maternity hospitals in which the training could occur. Her goal was to have hospitals that were for mothers, managed by women, and doctored by women. The hospitals were created for only a certain class of women, however. Only the respectable wives of working men could go there. Neill had no pity for the destitute woman, because Neill herself was a widow raising a child. Also, allowing destitute women into the hospitals would undermine the status of them, so they were excluded. Neill faced much opposition from doctors who thought that these hospitals would threaten their own incomes and control of the system. Finally, the Midwives Registration Act was introduced to Parliament by Richard Seddon in 1904. It was a great gain for organizations such as the British Medical Association. Seddon then initiated a set-up for the first state maternity hospital which would serve as a lying-in hospital for wives of the working class and as a training school for midwives. It was up to Elizabeth Neill to find a way to equip a suitable house within three weeks to set up this hospital. She was able to do so, and the first hospital opened on Rintoul Street, Wellington in June 1905. It was named St. Helen’s Hospital in honor of Seddon, whose birthplace was in Lancashire, England. After this significant event in New Zealand’s history, maternity hospitals began opening all over the country such as St. Helen’s Hospitals in Dunedin (1905), Auckland (1906), and Christchurch (1907). These founding hospitals have played an important role in developing good care for maternity patients.