新西兰英语 147 Money for maternity services
The government is giving more money for maternity 1 services. One reason for this is that more women are having babies at the moment and hospitals need more beds and more staff. Statistics 2 New Zealand said the number of babies born in March this year is the highest since March 1991. No one knows why women are having more babies and no one knows whether this will continue.
The Minister of Health, Tony Ryall, said there will be an extra $103 million in total for the next four years. Some of this money is to allow first time mothers to stay longer in hospital if they want to. New mothers sometimes need help with breast feeding. At the moment, women stay an average of two days in hospital after a normal birth. If a woman has a caesarean or a more complicated 3 birth, she usually stays five days.
Hospital staff say that the extra money will not help right now because there is a shortage 4 of midwives. Wellington hospital also has a shortage of beds. Two years ago, they were planning to give mothers a $100 grocery voucher 5 if they went home six hours after giving birth. Many people thought this put women under too much pressure and the hospital changed their minds about this plan.
Some of this money is to re-train GPs who would like to go back to delivering babies. Many doctors have given up this work. The Minister of Health would like doctors to return to maternity services.
- Women workers are entitled to maternity leave with full pay.女工产假期间工资照发。
- Trainee nurses have to work for some weeks in maternity.受训的护士必须在产科病房工作数周。
- We have statistics for the last year.我们有去年的统计资料。
- Statistics is taught in many colleges.许多大学都教授统计学。
- The poem is so complicated that I cannot make out its meaning.这首诗太复杂，我理解不了它的意思。
- This is the most complicated case I have ever handled.这是我所处理过的最为复杂的案子。
- The city is suffering a desperate shortage of water.这个城市严重缺水。
- The heart of the problem is a shortage of funds.问题的关键是缺乏经费。