View report page

30
Family Planning
In Circular 5/66 the Minister of Health urged local health authorities
to review the present arrangements for family planning advice and
treatment in their area and suggested ways in which, in co-operation with
Family Planning Association and other bodies, the local services might
be further developed for the welfare of their citizens.
The Borough continued to carry out general education in family
planning matters as authorised under existing powers. The service includes
lectures and discussions in the Health Education Programme, supplemented
by talks and discussions by the medical, health visiting, home
nursing and midwifery staff in their day to day contact with mothers in
the clinics and also during the course of home visiting. In addition,
suitable posters are exhibited at all the Borough clinics. Arrangements
were also made with the Family Planning Association whereby certain
clinics were made available, without charge, to the Association to hold
family planning sessions.
These sessions were held at the Elmwood Avenue and Alexandra
Avenue Clinics until November 1966 when due to the tremendous expansion
in the services arrangements were made to transfer the sessions at
Elmwood Avenue to the more commodious and more centrally situated
Caryl Thomas Clinic in Headstone Drive.
The present sessions are as follows:—
Caryl Thomas Clinic Monday evening
Headstone Drive, Wednesday afternoon
Wealdstone. Wednesday evening
Alexandra Avenue Clinic
Alexandra Avenue, Tuesday morning.
South Harrow.
The Borough accepts financial responsibility for patients referred by
Council Medical Officers for contraceptive advice and treatment on
medical grounds.
Section 23 — Midwifery
The domiciliary midwife working in liaison with the general practitioner
obstetrician provides ante-natal supervision of mothers expecting
to be confined at home. The ante-natal care includes instruction in the
use of analgesia apparatus—gas and air and trilene.
Sterilized maternity packs are available to all, except those who have
booked a hospital bed for their confinement. A special small emergency
pack is used in cases of early discharge from hospital.
The establishment of midwives during the year was fifteen full-time
and two part-time. During the year two midwives resigned one emigrating
to Canada and the other to the United States of America. Recruitment
was carried out by advertising through the normal channels and in fact
applications far outnumbered vacancies.