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16
B. Nursing.
Maternity Home Staff (vide under 1).
Thirteen Health Visitors.
One Infant Life Protection Officer.
Temporary Health Visitors during the epidemics of measles.
I.—The Municipal Maternity Home.
The Maternity Home is situated at 41, Rushey Green, Catford.
It contains three wards with accommodation for 17 patients and an
isolation ward with one bed. An endeavour is made to secure an
average admission of 28 patients each month and the minimum stay
required per patient is 14 days. As far as possible only cases likely
to follow a normal course are admitted. In cases already booked,
where any abnormality develops, the patient is referred to one of the
Council's Consultants who admits the case to Guy's Hospital if
hospital treatment is indicated. The Consultant Service provided
for practitioners in the district is also available for patients already
admitted to the Maternity Home who may require it.
Intending applicants for the Home fill in a form stating their
incomes, expenditure and the number of persons in the family, etc.
The members of the Maternity and Child Welfare Sub-Committee
consider each application and fix the fee to be paid. All fees are
required to be paid in full a month before admission.
All mothers booked for admission to the Home are required to
attend one of the three Ante-natal Clinics held weekly, exclusively
for Maternity Home cases, at the Health Centre, 410, High Street,
Lewisham. Table No. 1 shows the details regarding the Maternity
Home cases that attended these clinics during the year.
Patients who live outside the Borough are not eligible for
admission to the Maternity Home but cases already booked that
subsequently remove outside the Borough are not excluded provided
the removal takes place within 3 months of the date of confinement.
While in the Home every encouragement is given the Mothers
to breast-feed their babies. Very many people look upon breast
feeding as a natural process, which it should be, and that therefore