View report page

77
vices of a trained and competent midwife and I am of
opinion that these could best be obtained by the establishment
of a Municipal Midwifery Service. In the meantime
the Committee have decided to utilise the services of local
midwives under conditions to be approved by the Local
Government Board. In confinements at home it is necessary
that Home Helps should be provided. The function of these
women is to assist the midwife during the confinement and
to clean up and look after the home for 14 days or so afterwards.
Although no regular service of Home Helps has
been established by the Committee, arrangements have
been made from time to time to pay women in individual
cases for rendering these domestic services at confinements
and during the lying-in period. Medical aid should be at
hand for cases which midwives are unable to accomplish.
The medical men employed should be the most efficient to
be found and they should receive adequate remuneration.
1 would specially emphasize that the cheapest in cases of
difficult midwifery is really the dearest and that lack of
manipulative skill often results in a life of misery for the
patient. The medical men called in in such cases should
issue reports to the Local Authority. This practice would
be in the interests of the mother and the child and help to
secure the efficiency of the midwifery service. The Committee
now pay for the services of a medical man called in by
a midwife in urgent and necessitous cases, and are in communication
with the Local Government Board for approval
to a scheme which has been submitted. Hospital accommodation
should be provided for cases requiring operative
interference. Some additions and alterations to a pavilion
at the Municipal Hospital are at present in hand with a view
to early admission of such cases.
Nothing has struck me more in connection with enquiries
into the economic circumstances of families in relation to the