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The object of the service is to supply nursing care for those whose illness can be
as well treated at home as in hospital. An increasing amount of the work is concerned
with the elderly in helping to keep them in the community.
1964 saw a major advance in injection technique. All syringes used by Home
Nurses in Ealing were of the disposable type. These are sterilized by Gamma radiation
and are used once. The only exception is for patients such as diabetics who have a
personal syringe for their treatment.
Day and night nursing assistance is now available for patients with terminal
carcinoma through the Marie Curie Foundation who will also provide grants for
extra nourishment, etc. These services have been greatly appreciated.
The services of a home nurse are available at the request of the patient's medical
practitioner or hospital medical officer. Application should be made to the Health
Department, Town Hall Annexe, Ealing, W.5.
DOMICILIARY MIDWIFERY SERVICE
There is a staff of 14 Midwives in Ealing.
There were 666 home confinements in Ealing in 1964, compared with 708 in 1963.
The number of pupil midwives who received district training during the year was 17.
Patients suitable for home confinement are those who, it is expected, will have an
uncomplicated delivery and whose home circumstances are satisfactory.
Because of the extra demand for maternity hospital beds an extra domiciliary
midwife has been appointed to nurse midwifery patients who can be discharged from
hospital 48 hours after delivery. These patients are very carefully selected and are
discharged only if both mother and baby are fit. The inception of this scheme in 1962
was received with some misgiving, the impression being that patients would be asked
to leave hospital before they were fit to do so. Experience has proved it to be a very
popular idea and mothers participating say they consider they are getting "the best
of two worlds". They are particularly pleased to get home if they have other young
children. Wherever possible the midwife who visited the patient during the antenatal
period will be the midwife who attends the patient when she comes home on
the 2nd day.
A heated portable incubator, with facilities for the administration of oxygen, is
available to transport premature infants from home to hospital. The incubator is
kept at the Boston Road Ambulance Station from where it can be sent to any part
of the Borough where it is required.
Applications for the services of a midwife should be made through a Maternity
and Child Welfare Clinic.
HOME HELP SERVICE
The Home Help Service provides domestic help in time of illness. All normal
household duties, including shopping, cooking, washing, cleaning, and looking after
children are undertaken. There is an equivalent of 155 full-time home helps in Ealing.
At the end of the year there were over 1,000 cases receiving help. The order of priority
1962
67
1963
151
1964
306
63