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was lifted after a time. By October, 1945, 2,830 patients had passed through the
reception unit, including 1,856 for Council hospitals, 939 for non-Council hospitals
and 35 for their own homes.
Throughout the year, ten hospitals remained closed, viz., Downs Hospital for
Children, Sutton, Surrey; Millfield Convalescent Home, Littlehampton; Norwood
Hospital for Children; Princess Mary's Convalescent Hospital, Margate; St. Anne's
Home, Heme Bay; St. Clement's Hospital, E.3; St. Luke's Hospital, Lowestoft;
St. Margaret's Hospital, Kentish Town; St. Peter's Hospital, Whitechapel; and the
South-Eastern Hospital, New Cross.
The following hospitals, which were closed in 1944, when their patients were
evacuated to other parts of the country, were reopened on the dates stated:—
St. George's Home 23rd May, 1945
High Wood Hospital 25th May, 1945
St. Benedict's Hospital 10th August, 1945
Hackney Hospital II 5th September, 1945
St. Luke's Hospital, Chelsea 5th September, 1945
St. Matthew's Hospital 5th September, 1945
Goldie Leigh Hospital 15th September, 1945
White Oak Hospital 1st October, 1945
Acute
general
hospitals
At the beginning of the year 7,433 patients remained under treatment. The
number rose to 8,158 on 7th February, 1945, and then fell to 7,298 on 22nd August,
1945. The number remaining at the end of the year was 7,652.
Maternity
patients
The Council's maternity services were again subject to very disturbed conditions,
inimical to satisfactory obstetrical care. Ante-natal care was broken by the
evacuation scheme, and mothers were so uncertain of future plans that a large
number refrained from early booking. For the first four months of the year
evacuation to country homes and hostels under the Ministry's scheme was pressed
because of enemy action, and the number of women confined in the Council's hospitals
fell to the lowest figure since 1933. With the end of the war came a natural desire
in the women to have their babies near home and a period of very heavy pressure
on the Council's accommodation began. Although the number of beds in maternity
units was raised from 460 on 1st January, to 630 on 31st December, 1945, it was
not large enough to overtake the increasing demand. The great obstacle in the
way of a prompt opening of more beds is the serious lack of midwives and domestic
staff.
In the effort to meet the shortage, arrangements were made with seven of the
London voluntary hospitals to open more beds for which they had staff, on payment
of a maintenance grant from the Council. These beds were filled with applicants
sent on from the borough clinics in cases where the home circumstances were
unsuitable for a confinement.
The disorganisation of the maternity services due to abnormal movements
of the population was reflected in the higher maternal mortality which occurred
among "unbooked" cases (no return is yet made of the numbers of "booked"
and "unbooked" deliveries, but it is known that the latter is very much higher
since the war). The confinements in Council hospitals in 1945 numbered 12,435,
the births 12,594 (including 447 still births, a rate of 3.55 per cent.). The maternal
deaths among the women confined in hospital were 28 (or 2.21 per 1,000), 13 of these
occurring among booked cases and 11 among the emergency admissions. Deaths
directly due to pregnancy or confinement after the twenty-eighth week numbered
24 (1.91 per 1,000), and 4 women died from disease associated with pregnancy or
confinement (.31 per 1,000). Two maternal deaths occurred in women confined
before admission. Deaths from sepsis fortunately remained at a very low figure.
There was one such death only among the booked cases, but three among the
emergencies, two of the three being badly infected before admission. Next year