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Home Assessments
The pressure on maternity beds available for Islington women continued, and the
Council's midwives assisted in the selection of patients for hospital confinement by
visiting to assess the home conditions of 489 patients who did not qualify for a
hospital bed on medical grounds.
Early Discharge Scheme
This scheme, which relieved pressure on hospital beds by providing a
domiciliary midwifery service for mothers discharged from hospital 48 hours after
delivery, continued to be popular with Islington women. 470 requests from hospital
for assessment by the Council's midwives of patients' home conditions were dealt with
and 354 patients thus booked were nursed on discharge. In addition 132 patients who
had taken their own discharge from hospital against medical advice, were nursed by
the Council's staff. Such patients presented a problem as often they returned to
homes which were most unsuitable for the carrying out of any nursing procedures.
Maternal Deaths
Confidential enquiries, in accordance with Ministry of Health instructions, were
initiated into the deaths of 4 women who had been Islington residents. All these
deaths occurred in hospital and the Council's staff had not been concerned in anyway
with the care and treatment given.
Stillbirths
5 domiciliary stillbirths occurred during the year; 3 of these cases had been
booked for domiciliary delivery by a Council midwife, and the other two cases were
emergencies in which the Council's midwife was called and found that the child had
already been born.
Training
Of the Council's full-time midwives, 8 were approved by the central Midwives
Board as district teaching midwives to train pupil midwives for the three months
district experience that is required in the second period of their training. The
Council accepts pupil midwives from City of London Maternity and Paddington General
Hospitals. During 1966 35 pupils completed their district experience and a further 9
were in training at the end of the year.
Health Visiting
The health visitor of to-day must be aware of the repeated changes in both the
medical as well as the social field. The majority of the population is enjoying a
better standard of living than before, and has more knowledge of physical and mental
illness. The health visitor as the key field worker responsible for health education
of the families in the community, must nevertheless continue to advise on basic
health, hygiene and nutrition. It is still vitally important to urge parents to
protect their children against infectious diseases. The continued teaching of the
basic rules of health is particularly important in these days when there is an
increasing number of very young parents, and parents from overseas. Much of the work
of the health visitor is undertaken in the homes where she can talk with individuals
in their own environment. Educational classes arranged by health visitors have also
been a regular feature of maternity and child welfare work; they include talks on
mothercraft, cookery demonstrations and sewing classes. Evening classes were held at
three clinics for working mothers.
Within the school health service the health visitors acted as the chief link in
health and social matters between the school and the home. They also had close contact
with the teaching staff and undertook the health supervision.of children of all ages.
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