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MIDWIFERY SERVICE
(Section 23)
Throughout the year difficulty has been encountered in maintaining a
sufficient number of midwives to ensure a safe and workable service. Fortunately,
it has been possible to find replacements for those midwives who left
the service but it has been impossible to maintain a full establishment.
Every effort is being made to attract midwives into the local service.
Two were recruited from pupil midwives trained in the area and one other
mainly because it was possible to offer housing accommodation. There is no
doubt that facilities for transport and housing play an important part in the
recruitment of midwives.
The introduction of a shift system which would afford the midwife some
undisturbed nights is proposed as soon as a sufficient number of staff can be
obtained. Each midwife has undertaken more than the recommended number
of deliveries.
Any difficulty encountered is often due to the fact that people do not
avail themselves of the services provided and there are still small numbers
of pregnant women who do not receive adequate ante-natal care. One hundred
per cent ante-natal care is the key to trouble-free confinements.
An increasing number of general practitioners are undertaking antenatal
care and engaging in the practice of obstetrics. Their co-operation with
the midwives has been excellent.
Early discharges from hospital continue to form a part of every midwife's
work. Patients are commonly sent home on the third day following confinement
and receive two visits on this day and a daily visit thereafter by their
midwives until the fourteenth day.
All midwives are at present up to date with refresher courses. These
are found to be useful and stimulating and much appreciated by the midwives.
One midwife is at present taking the course for the Midwife Teachers Diploma.
Five or six pupil midwives are continuously in training on the district
from the Alexandra Maternity Home at Muswell Hill. Seventeen pupils were
trained in 1959, fifteen of whom were successful at the examination.