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379
reasonably demand it by ensuring a comfortable living wage in
return for her services. It is not too much to state that £200 a year
is the remuneration which should be provided nowadays to any
properly trained woman Health Worker.
There is at the present day no midwife living within the Borough
of Stoke Newington; and the provisions for maternity nurses are
unsatisfactory from the standpoints both of quality and quantity.
The Infant and Child Welfare work in the country must be exerting
a beneficial influence on the general health of the school children.
The work will undoubtedly raise the physical standard of "entrants"
in a few years' time.
Dr. Mabel Muncey reports as follows upon her useful work in
connection with expectant mothers:—
"The work of the Ante-Natal Clinic has increased during the
last 12 months. The number of new cases has risen from 66 in the
first year to 76 during the second year, and the attendances from
100 in 1919 to 167 in 1920.
"These figures may seem small in comparison with attendances
at Infant Welfare Clinics, but the work is completely different. It
is impossible to examine and advise expectant mothers in less than
20 to 30 minutes each. A general examination of heart, lungs and
kidneys is given to each patient to diagnose conditions in the general
health which would be fatal or harmful to the patient or the baby,
and a special examination is made to gauge the type of labour which
is probable and any special conditions likely to cause trouble at the
confinement or during the lying-in period.
"The majority of cases coming to the Clinic have already
engaged a midwife (cases having booked with a doctor are referred
at once to the doctor), and as a routine measure the midwife is
advised by letter of any abnormality found.