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20
It will be noted that the increasing use made of
the Ante-natal Clinic up to 1930 received a setback in
1931. Changes in staff personnel is the explanation of
this falling off, which is a common experience in work
of this nature.
The total number of expectant mothers who attended
at the clinics during the year was 101, and the average
number of expectant mothers per session at all clinics
was 8. Of the confinements taking place in the Borough,
approximately 16 per cent, had attended the Ante-natal
Clinic, the remainder coming under ante-natal supervision
of midwives, doctors and maternity nurses.
The work of the clinic is supplemented by home
visitation, carried out by the health visitors, midwives
and nursing staff of the District Nursing Association.
During 1931 visits to ante-natal mothers were as
follows: —
Health Visitors 139
District Nurses 1089
Whilst there was a falling off in the number of
ante-natal visits by health visitors in 1931, there was a
corresponding increase in visits by the district nurses.
The development of the district and its services has
had the inevitable effect of depleting the visiting time
at the disposal of the health visiting staff. That home
visitation to expectant mothers, a work of such importance,
should suffer, has been a matter for considerable
concern, the solution for which appears to lie only in
additional staff. Although the recorded visits is low,
there is some compensation in the fact that expectant
mothers receive attention from an " unrecorded " aspect,
as many of them are regular attendants at the welfare
centres and surveillance is then exercised. This type
of supervision is in the nature of a " makeshift '
has not the value of the direct home visit, when the
visitor can give that undivided attention to the individual
in the confines of the home which is so desirable to this
branch of the work.
The existence of a clinic is now more widely
in Bromley and the surrounding districts, and patients
have been sent to us from Biggin Hill, Cudham, Orpin
ton, Farnborough, Keston and Hayes.