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15
During the year the Report of the Departmental Committee
on Maternal Mortality was published. This Report
brings before public authorities the main causes of
Maternal Mortality. It showed that 48 per cent. of deaths
of mothers was due to preventable causes: (1) 17 per cent.
lack of ante-natal care, (2) 17 per cent. errors of judgment
by doctors and midwives, (3) 5 per cent. lack of
facilities for medical care, and (4) 9 per cent. negligence
of patient or friends. Statistics are apt to err, and are
often misleading, but if we accept the above statistics as
true facts it must bring before us the great need for effort
in this field of preventive medicine. There has been
much criticism of the effectiveness of ante-natal care, but
much of this criticism is biassed. Child Welfare underwent
the same criticism in its early days because results
were not immediate. To-day criticism of Maternity and
Child Welfare is silent because results have far exceeded
the most sanguine of hopes.
Maternal Mortality in Bromley is at the rate of four
per 1,000 births; a rate that must be combatted by all
the machinery available.
If the Death Rate of mothers is so high, what must
he the illness rate as a result of ill-managed pregnancy?
Every mother is entitled to expert skill and attention
throughout pregnancy, and yet we lack adequate maternity
hospital accommodation, and we allow unqualified persons
to he in attendance at birth. It is my view that maternity
hospitals should be part and parcel of the Maternity and
Child Welfare service, and that hospital accommodation
should always be available for the medically necessitous
case, whether ante-natal, natal or post-natal. There is a