Born in New Zealand

Short Film (Full Length) – 1958

Exempt

This National Film Unit production was made to celebrate the golden jubilee of the Plunket Society. Plunket — aka ‘Karitane’ — nursing is a New Zealand system of ante-natal and post-natal care for mothers and infants, founded by Sir Truby King: “the man who saved the babies”. Featuring original nurse Joanne MacKinnon, the film follows Plunket from a time of high infant mortality to providing contemporary nursing to a New Zealand flush with postwar optimism: “a family country, where children grow happily in the fresh air and sunshine.”

Today young New Zealanders start their journey free from many of the hazards that overshadowed children's lives half a century ago, when more than 80 out of every New Zealand 1000 babies died before they could walk. Now with one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, we remember the man who saved the babies: the late Sir Frederick Truby King.
– From the narration