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to be maintained at their present high standard. The acute shortage
of trained Health Visitors made recruitment a matter of some difficulty,
but it is hoped that the position will be easier in 1946.
The District Nursing Association midwives continued to provide
excellent domiciliary services and worked in the closest co-operation
with the department. During the year under review they attended 71
maternity and 79 midwifery cases.
ANTE-NATAL CLINIC.
The Clinic is housed in the Nurses' Home, Montagu Gardens, where
very good accommodation is rented by the Council from the District
Nursing Association.
No change took place in the arrangement of this clinic, two
sessions weekly being held, with an average attendance of 12.3 patients
per session.
During the year 397 expectant mothers attended the clinic, as
compared with 344 in 1944. This represents approximately 77.6 per
cent. of the total notified births, live and still, which were assigned
to the Borough during 1945, and is a creditable reflection on the
efficiency and consequent popularity of the Council's Ante-Natal
Service.
POST-NATAL CLINIC.
During 1945 such post-natal cases as required treatment or advice
continued to be seen at the Ante-Natal Clinic held on Friday afternoons.
By the end of the year it was becoming evident that attendances
had increased sufficiently to justify considering the re-opening
of the separate Post-Natal Clinic which had been closed during the
emergency which obtained during the summer of 1944.
As the post-natal cases attending during 1945 constituted about
20 per cent. of the total births notified, it is hoped that arrangements
can be made to re-open this clinic early in 1946, when it is expected
that still more post-natal cases will take advantage of these facilities.
It is reliably estimated that considerably more patients receive
post-natal care than attend at the Council's clinics. The majority of
women confined at County Council Hospitals are instructed on discharge
to return for post-natal examination, usually within the month,
and the majority of mothers readily avail themselves of these facilities.
It is likely, therefore, that the number of women who receive postnatal
care under local authority or County Council Maternity Services
is likely to reach as high as 45 per cent. to 50 per cent. Figures in the
following combined table include, therefore, post-natal attendances at
the Council's Friday Ante-Natal Clinic.
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