‘‘Save the babies’’

That was the motto adopted when New Zealand’s first Karitane hospital opened in Andersons Bay in 1910.

A report by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga says the health of infants was one of New Zealand’s major concerns of the early 20th century and with good reason: more than seven in 100 New Zealand children were dying in infancy from illnesses such as gastroenteritis, tuberculosis, polio and diptheria.

The campaign to improve child welfare was spearheaded by Dr Frederic Truby King, superintendent of the Seacliff mental hospital, and his wife, Isabella, after they adopted a baby daughter.

After caring for sick babies at their holiday home in Karitane, Frederic Truby King called a public meeting which led to the formation of the Plunket Society. Soon after, wealthy Dunedinite Woolf Harris offered a six-bedroom villa and more than 1.2ha of land in Every St for a hospital for premature and weak babies.

The care provided there — and in the other Karitane hospitals that followed — emphasised rigid feeding and sleeping routines, fresh air and the use of modified cow’s milk if babies could not be breastfed.

In 1938-39, the cramped Every Street villa was replaced by the building that stands on the site today but by 1980, all six of New Zealand’s Karitane hospitals had been sold.

Their closure was attributed to increased running costs and a move to community-based care.