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51
During the past year the daily average number of
beds occupied was twenty-four. The total number
of bed-days was 8,687.
From the above figures it will be appreciated that
the number of cases wishing to enter the Hospital
were in excess of the beds actually available there, and
in an endeavour to meet the situation part of the old
maternity pavilion was reopened. Towards the end
of the year, however, it was found necessary to limit
the number to be admitted to the Hospital. In order
to do your best to see that those cases in which hospitalisation
was obligatory were not overlooked, it was
necessary for you to enquire of each applicant concerning
her domestic circumstances. It will be
appreciated by those people that these enquiries into
their personal circumstances were not intended to be
inquisitorial, but were wholly and solely for the
purpose of seeing that the Hospital was used to the best
advantage of those who had the most claim to it on
social and medical grounds.
A small beginning has been made in endeavouring
to get so many as it is possible of the women who are
to be confined in the Hospital to attend, either the
clinic in the Humphrey Ward, situated in the grounds
of the Hospital, or to such other clinics where they can
be seen by the Resident Medical Officer of the Hospital
himself, particularly after 30 weeks of pregnancy.
It is hoped that this slow beginning will develop until
it can be said that all those women who are to be
confined in the Hospital will have been ante-natalled
in the later stages of their pregnancies by the Resident
Medical Officer, who, of course, will be responsible