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77
(a) The medical practitioner shall not have agreed to attend
the patient under arrangements made by or on behalf of the patient
or by any Club, Medical Institute or other Association of which the
patient or her husband is a member;
(b) The medical practitioner shall not be under obligation to
give the treatment to the patient under the National Health Insurance
Acts, 1924 to 1935;
(c) The medical practitioner shall not receive or agree to receive
a fee from the patient or her representative;
(d) Fees shall not be payable (i) in respect of any services performed
by the medical practitioner later than the tenth day after
his first attendance, except where he has reported to the local
supervising authority that he considers, for reasons stated, that his
further attendance is necessary, (ii) in respect of any services performed
by the medical practitioner after the expiry of four weeks
from the birth.
Of the 56 notices, accounts were received in respect of 42
totalling the sum of £59 5s. Od. Of this amount the patients' contributions
were assessed at £45 8s. 6d. In the County during 1935
in about two-thirds of the cases the fee was claimed from the local
supervising authority, about one half of this amount being recovered.
MIDWIVES ACT, 1936.
The Council having been constituted the Local Supervising
Authority under the Midwives Acts, 1902-1926 became the authority
responsible for carrying out in this district the provisions of the
Midwives Act, 1936. Under this it is the duty of the Council to
secure for the district "that the number of certified midwives
available for attendance on women in their own homes as
midwives or as maternity nurses during childbirth and from time
to time thereafter during a period not less than the lying-in period,
is adequate for the needs of the district." This duty could be discharged
either by the Council making arrangements with voluntary
organisations for the employment by them of certified midwives
as whole-time servants, or by the Council thus employing such
midwives.
Operating in this district are three Nursing Associations of
which the Stanmore Association engages one nurse-midwife who
acts only as a maternity nurse, the Pinner Association engages one
nurse-midwife who acts as midwife or as maternity nurse, and the
Harrow, Wealdstone and Harrow Weald District Nursing Association
who undertake no midwifery or maternity nursing.
The Maternity and Child Welfare Committee, after learning
the views of these Nursing Associations, of the local branch of the