London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Islington 1938

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Islington Borough]

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37
[1938
Hospital, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, Maternity Nursing Association
(235, Camden Road), Middlesex Hospital, Royal Free Hospital, Royal Northern
Hospital, St. Bartholomew's Hospital and University College Hospital.
The London County Council's midwives and the midwives of the Maternity
Nursing Associations also act as Maternity Nurses where a doctor has been engaged
for the confinement.
The fee for a first confinement is £2, and for a second or subsequent confinement
£1 10s. 0d., but the fees may be remitted by the London County Council where
circumstances warrant.
The Borough Council co-operated with the London County Council in giving
publicity to the new arrangements, and also takes part in the scheme by making
appointments for patients to attend ante-natal clinics at the voluntary welfare
centres, and exchanges reports with midwives regarding confinements and home
conditions. Every endeavour is made to persuade the mother to secure post-natal
attention, and it is hoped that this will in due course show itself by an increase in
the post-natal attendances at the various clinics.
County of London (Midwifery—Prohibition of Unqualified Persons) Order, 1938.
Under the above Order notice has been given by the London County Council
that, so far as regards the Administrative County of London, any unqualified woman
or any male person receiving any remuneration for attending as a nurse on a woman
in childbirth or at any time during the ten days immediately after childbirth, becomes
liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding ten pounds. This Order came
into force on 1st November, 1938.
The Order, however, excludes from the above prohibition certain persons as
under:—
(а) Women certified under the Midwives Act, 1902, or registered in the general
part of the register of nurses required to be kept under the Nurses Registration
Act, 1919.
(b) Persons who, while undergoing training with a view to becoming a duly
qualified medical practitioner or a certified midwife, attend on a woman as
aforesaid as part of a course of practical instruction in midwifery recognised
by the General Medical Council or by the Central Midwives Board.
(c) Persons attending on a woman as aforesaid in any nursing home which is
registered or which is exempt from registration under Part XI of the
Public Health (London) Act, 1936, or in any hospital or other premises
excluded from the definition of " nursing home " in section 304 of the same
Act.
(d) Women, who before 1st January, 1937, have been certified by the authorities
of a hospital or institution approved by the Minister to have been trained
in obstetric nursing and who have notified the local supervising authority
in writing accordingly.
This Order will, of course, eliminate the " handywoman " as usually understood.