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60
Arrangements for Confinement.
At Home.
To encourage confinements at home, arrangements have been
made for the following forms of assistance to be available to
necessitous persons :—
(a) Payment of a midwife's fees. This payment ordinarily
is conditional on the patient having received satisfactory
ante-natal supervision.
(b) Payment of the fees of a home help.
(c) Provision of maternity sets.
In an Institution.
Up to 1931 there was at 10, College Road, Harrow, the Harrow,
Wealdstone and District War Memorial Maternity Hostel of eight
beds. By reason of an annual grant made to this Hostel, both
the Harrow-on-the-Hill and the Wealdstone Councils were entitled
to nominate a certain number of cases for admission at reduced
fees. When, owing to the running out of the lease of this building
in March, 1932, the Hostel closed down, the Harrow-on-the-Hill
Council assisted in payment of patients' fees for admission to
one or two local private maternity homes. As these arrangements,
in view of the charges made, would prove costly, the new Harrow
Council entered into agreement with a number of London maternity
institutions for the reception of necessitous cases, an agreement
of a temporary nature to bridge the gap until more suitable provisions
could be made. Actually last year only 16 patients were
admitted to hospitals for their confinements under the Council's
scheme. Apart from the fact that many mothers will not accept
these facilities although they may be cases for whom institutional
accommodation is desirable, great difficulty is being experienced
in getting beds for the patients. Additional maternity beds are
needed to provide for the rapidly growing population in the neighbourhood.
At a conference of the neighbouring authorities held
in 1933, proposals were submitted for the reception of cases from
this and other areas into an institution of a nearby authority. The
suggestion was, however, apparently not acceptable to the various
councils.
The present policy of the Ministry of Health is to discourage
the provision of small maternity homes as separate units, favouring
the securing of maternity beds for complicated cases and for
patients with unsuitable home conditions in small units associated
with general hospitals. The only institutions in this locality in
association with which such provision could be made are the
Harrow and Wealdstone General Hospital and the Redhill County
Hospital. It is understood that there is no likelihood of a maternity
unit being established at the former of these two institutions. At
Redhill there is a maternity department of some twenty-five beds
which is to be extended to sixty beds. In the meantime, not one
of the three districts which feed this hospital is as yet providing