The Rise and Fall of National Women's Hospital

Overview

In this major history, Linda Bryder traces the annals of National Women’s Hospital over half a century in order to tell a wider story of reproductive health. She uses the varying perspectives of doctors, nurses, midwives, consumer groups, and patients to show how together their dialog shaped the nature of motherhood and women’s health in 20th-century New Zealand. Natural childbirth and rooming in, artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization, sterilization and abortion: women’s health and reproduction went through a revolution in the 20th century as scientific advances confronted ethical and political dilemmas. In New Zealand, the major site for this revolution was National Women’s Hospital. Established in Auckland in 1946, with a purpose-built building that opened in 1964, National Women’s was the home of medical breakthroughs scandals. This chronicle covers them all.

Reviews

“Linda Bryder has made a valuable contribution to the medical social history of the infant welfare movement.”  —Paula Watts, Medical History Australia magazine, on A Voice for Mothers: The Plunket Society and Infant Welfare 1907–2000

“Provides a well-written, thorough, and comprehensive academic history of not only the Plunket Society, Karitane hospitals and nurses, but the entire spectrum of maternal and child welfare in 20th-century New Zealand.”  —Julia Millen, New Zealand Books, on A Voice for Mothers: The Plunket Society and Infant Welfare 1907–2000

“An invaluable and impressive and thoroughly detailed history of one of the great NZ institutions. . . . The importance of this book to the general debate on the family and health and social welfare can hardly be overemphasized.”  —Graeme Barrow, Northern Advocate, on A Voice for Mothers: The Plunket Society and Infant Welfare 1907–2000

“Linda Bryder tells in a scholarly and definitive way the story of how this calamity came about. It is a chilling and gripping account. Read it. Although the story relates to a crisis in New Zealand, it bears a grim message for all who endeavor to advance medical science.”  —Robin W. Carrell, Notes & Records of the Royal Society journal, on A History of the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’ at National Women’s Hospital

“Really riveting reading. And it’s well worth taking the time to read slowly and to look at the range of opinions on the various treatments for pre-cancerous lesions.”  —Rae McGregor, Speaking Volumes, Radio NZ National, on A History of the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’ at National Women’s Hospital

“Undoubtedly, the book will arouse much comment from those still able to recall these events, but as a work of medical history it will be a valuable and lasting resource.”  —Caroline M. De Costa, Medical Journal of Australia, on A History of the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’ at National Women’s Hospital

“Linda Bryder’s book is a valuable contribution to medical history, feminism and the politics of health care, and continues the much needed scholarship and debate about the practise of medicine, and its communication to the public.”  —Sue Bond, Media Culture Reviews, on A History of the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’ at National Women’s Hospital

“This is an expert, articulate and courageous demonstration of the contemporary indispensability of history."  —Judges of the Ernest Scott History Prize, on A History of the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’ at National Women’s Hospital

Author Biography

Linda Bryder is a professor of history at the University of Auckland, where she teaches 20th-century New Zealand history, with a particular focus on the history of social policy and health care. She is also an honorary professor at the Centre for History in Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and was an honorary visiting professor in the School of Law & Social Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University. She is the author of Below the Magic Mountain, A History of the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’ at National Women’s Hospital, and A Voice for Mothers: The Plunket Society and Infant Welfare 1907–2000 and editor of A Healthy Country: Essays on the Social History of Medicine in New Zealand.