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91 [1937
person being a woman neither certified under the principal Act nor registered in
the general part of the Register of Nurses kept under the Nurses' Registration Act,
1919, nor a male person, may receive any remuneration for attending in that area
as a nurse on a woman in child-birth or during a period immediately following
child-birth.
Another change which has been introduced with this Act is the extension of
the normal lying-in period from ten days to fourteen days.
So far as Islington is concerned, arrangements have been made during the year
for the interchange of information, reports, etc., as between the London County
Council midwives and the Medical Officers of the Ante-natal and Post-natal Clinics
of the Voluntary Welfare Centres through the medium of the Medical Officer of
Health. Arrangements have also been made to co-ordinate reports on domiciliary
conditions made by the Borough Council's Health Visitors with recommendations
which may have been made by the London County Council midwives, so that the
best possible conditions for the ensuing confinement may be ascertained.
GRANTS TO MIDWIVES.
(i) " Necessitous cases " confined at home.
(ii) Where Medical Officer of a Centre has intervened in sending the midwife's
patient to hospital.
The conditions applicable to these grants were fully set out in the Medical
Officer of Health's Annual Report for the year 1935, p. 22.
(1) No application for such compensation was made by any certified
midwife during this year.
(2) Two claims of a certified midwife were paid by the Council during this
year under this section.
HOSPITAL GRANTS.
Contributions made under arrangement for maternity cases admitted to beds
at Maternity Hospitals at the rate of 10s. per case were City of London Maternity
Hospital £37 10s., Royal Free Hospital £l 10s., and University College Hospital £28.
HOME HELPS.
The Home Help Scheme which commenced to function in the early part of
1936, and which has been described in the reports for 1935 and 1936, has proved
very successful, and, as will be seen by the figures, has appealed to an increasingly
large number of mothers. The original scheme, however, was limited to the
provision of Home Helps during the lying-in period only. During the past year
the Council decided that on and from October 1st, 1937, expectant mothers might
also obtain the services of a Home Help if they were incapacitated during pregnancy.
A medical certificate is required stating the condition causing incapacity.
The charges which an applicant for a Home Help under this extended scheme may
be required to pay are the same as is now charged for a Home Help during the
lying-in period, and the same conditions apply with regard to the Home Help, viz. :
that she shall be concerned only in domestic duties in the home, and must refrain
from doing anything which properly belongs to the sphere of a trained nurse or
midwife.