View report page

30
In view of the number of cases sent annually by the Council
to this Hostel, and the satisfactory results obtained, the contribution
of the Council, formerly £100 per annum, was increased as
from 1st April, 1933, to £150 per annum.
Ante-Natal Work.
The Ante-Natal Clinics provided by the Council under their
Maternity and Child Welfare Scheme are under the direction and
supervision of the Consultant Gynaecologist (Miss Alice Bloomfield,
m.d., f.r.c.s.). These Clinics are held at the Out-patient Department
of the Borough Maternity Hospital on Tuesdays and
Wednesdays, and for the convenience of patients living at a distance
from the Hospital a session is held at the Southlands centre on
Fridays. Subsidiary clinics are held at the Plough Road and East
Battersea centres, which are attended by the Assistant Medical
Officer (Maternity and Child Welfare), and the Women's League of
Service, a voluntary organisation, whose Battersea centre for Maternity
and Child Welfare is linked up with that of the Council's scheme,
also holds an Ante-Natal Clinic at their Southlands premises. Each
mother who books for admission to the Borough Maternity Hospital,
or for attendance by the Borough Maternity nursing staff in her
own home, is required to attend the Ante-Natal clinic periodically
before her confinement, and every case is seen at least once by the
Consultant Gyn£ecologist. Doctors and private midwives practising
in Battersea are also encouraged to send their maternity
patients to the central Ante-Natal clinic at the Borough Maternity
Hospital for examination and report by the Consultant Gynaecologist.
Miss Bloomfield (Consultant Gynaecologist) reports:—
Tuesday A fternoon (" Special ") Clinic.—This clinic is held at
the Battersea Borough Maternity Home on Tuesday afternoons at
2 p.m., by me, and is devoted to—
(a) The taking of blood specimens for the Wassermann test.
(b) To the diagnosis and treatment of gynaecological cases, both
ante-natal and post-natal, and
(c) To the making of such examinations, under anaesthesia—
e.g. for rectifying a breech presentation by external version
—as may be necessary.
Little more need be said about these cases. They are done as
they occur, sometimes one or two on an afternoon, on other
occasions, none.
During the last year—1933—there have been 882 attendances
at this clinic, an average of 15.3 patients per session. In 763
of the cases a specimen of blood has been taken for the Wassermann
test. Of these only 4 have given a positive reaction. The
taking of the specimens of blood, with the help of a good nurse, is