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The number of home deliveries was 508. In 301 of these cases a
General Practitioner/Obstetrician was booked but was not present at
the delivery. There was an increase in the number of cases
discharged from Maternity Hospital after 48 hours into the care of
domiciliary midwives, i.e. 276 cases in 1963 compared with 84 in
1962.
The report for 1956 gave details of the steps taken in regard to
co operation with general practitioners and these arrangements,
amended and improved in the light of experience, continued during
the year under review. In 1963, 8 Midwives and Nurse/Midwives
assisted at Antenatal Clinics held in the surgeries of 14 General
Practitioners.
Sixteen pupil Midwives from Thorpe Coombe Maternity Hospital
undertook their district midwifery training at the Nurses Home and
15 passed the examination.
Two Midwives attended refresher courses arranged by the Royal
College of Midwives.
For some time past it has been a regular practice for local
Maternity Hospitals to request through the Department reports on the
home conditions of certain expectant mothers who have applied to have
their confinement in Hospital. Hitherto these reports have been
completed by Health Visitors, but in view of the fact that in the
event of a hospital booking being refused, or the case being accepted
for a 48 hour admission only, a district Midwife would be concerned
with the confinement or the lying in period, arrangements have now
been made for the district Midwives to take over this reponsibility
and report upon the suitability or otherwise of the home circumstances
of individual cases.
Section 24 HEALTH VISITING
Since the implementation of the National Health Service Act the
Health Visitor has acquired a miscellaneous collection of duties to
meet the changing social and environmental conditions of the
community.
We hear much of selective and discretionary visiting and of
Quality rather than quantity. Being confronted daily with a variety
of medical and social problems, it is not surprising that the Health
Visitor may have some doubt as to her own function and finds it
difficult to decide the order of priorities in her visiting.
In Walthamstow. we do not specialize in any one particular field
of the Health Visitor's variety of work. As a family visitor the
range is wide and is in fact often described to cover from Womb
to Tomb i.e. expectant mothers, children under five years of age,
school children, the elderly and handicapped. Visits in these
categories are carried out as and when the need arises.