View report page

Number of patients admitted from Merton
and Morden: —
(1) General Wards 149
(2) Private Wards 62
211
2. The County and Public Assistance Hospitals. In
addition to the voluntary accommodation described above, there
is available to the district various County Hospitals. St. Helier
Hospital with a bed complement approaching 1,000 is only
just outside the boundary and both Kingston and Epsom
Hospitals are within five miles or so.
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
Public Health Act, 1936, Section 203 — Notification of Births.
The births notified under Section 203, as adjusted by
transferred notifications, were as follows: —
Live Births 1,359 Notified by Midwives 607
Still Births 29 Notified by doctors
and parents 11
Transferred from other
districts 770
1,388 1,388
The Work of the Centres.
The increase in the attendances at the centres has in recent
years reached such proportions that a corresponding increase in
the number of sessions has been imperative, in order to maintain
the standard of the work at the centres. It is obvious that a
mother who is worried by the failure of her baby to progress
satisfactorily, needs an opportunity for a quiet discussion of her
problem and this is impossible in the bustle and noise of an
overcrowded clinic. There is a very definite limit too, to the
numbers of expectant mothers who can be dealt with in one
ante-natal session without the quality of the work suffering. We
should try to keep in mind that it is the minor variations from
health in pregnancy that are responsible for the avoidable infant
deaths that we are all so anxious to reduce. It behoves us therefore,
to see that as far as possible no incipient illness in pregnancy
goes undetected for want of time for proper and careful examination
or because through being fatigued by numbers, there is any
lowering of acuity of judgment of the Ante-Natal Doctor.
32