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wait hopefully for an increase in the number of maternity beds in the
area, the only way there seems to be any hope of increasing the
number of mothers who have the advantages of a booked hospital bed
is to foster schemes for early discharge from hospital after the birth
to adequate care at home. This would bring increased turnover in
the labour wards and new work for midwifery staff on the district
and the staffing position in these two spheres has to be kept constantly
under review.
No one likes the system whereby patients are admitted on the
Emergency Bed Service; not the family doctors disturbed during the
night, nor the hospital staff receiving patients they do not know, nor
the clinic staff trying ceaselessly by letters and telephone calls to find
an alternative, nor least of all by the patient who is anxious and in
suspense until the last moment. We all work for and look forward
to the day when we are in a position to abandon it. But as the
situation is, the Emergency Bed Service is an extremely efficient and
well run organisation the absence of which would cause greater hardships
and possible risks to mother and child.
The percentage of expectant mothers making at least one attendance
at one of the local authority ante-natal clinics was 52.0% in
1962 compared with 61.2% the previous year.