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38
The building is arranged in three 3-storey blocks, connected on each floor by wide corridors.
The child welfare clinic and ante-natal wards are on the ground floor; the maternity wards and
babies' nursery on the middle floor; and the staff quarters and main kitchen on the top floor. An
isolation unit is also provided on the ground floor. There are separate entrances to the Maternity
Home and the Clinic. Suitable staircases, a stretcher bed lift, a service lift and telephones connect
the various levels. There is an extensive flat roof for the use of the staff for air and exercise.
The clinic part consists of a large waiting hall, communicating through weighing and antenatal
examination rooms with two separate doctor's consulting rooms, and, at the other end, with a
dispensary for the distribution of dried milks and feeding adjuvants. A covered way leads to a
large pram shelter. The middle block on the ground floor contains the dental surgery and recovery
rooms, the health visitors' room, and also an extensive Light treatment centre, described elsewhere
in the report (page 34).
The first floor is entirely occupied by the Maternity Home with an equipment the most up-todate
available. There are two six-bed wards, four two-bed wards, two labour wards and sterilising
and sluice rooms; a large nursery, etc. The large wards open on wide sun balconies, and adjoining
the Nursery is a flat roof where, in fine weather, the babies' cots can stand in the open air.
The second floor accommodates the staff quarters and the main kitchen of the Home. Each
nurse and maid has a tastefully furnished bed-sitting room.
Electricity is used throughout the building for heating, lighting, sterilising, etc.
The Department is now equipped with possibilities for the care and treatment of pregnancy
throughout all its phases, and the institution of post-natal clinics completes the system for the care
of the parturient woman.
The first babies born in the Home were twins, and to each of them the Mayor presented a
silver spoon.
The staff of the Maternity Home receive practical ante-natal training at the clinics as before
and have now the opportunity of also attending the post-natal clinics; thus, each midwife sees her
case from the beginning to the end. The presence of a Resident Medical Officer, experienced in
obstetrics, at the Maternity Home, completes the unit.
The Maternity Home is recognised as a training school by the Central Midwives Board, and
trained nurses are prepared for the certificate of that Board.
The following is a record of the work done at the Maternity Home during 1937:—
Old Home New Home Total
Cases admitted 143 55 198
Average duration of stay (days) 14 14 14
Number of cases notified as Puerperal Pyrexia 1 — 1
Cases delivered by—
(a) Midwives 140 55 195
(b) Doctors 2 — 2
(c) Born before admission 1 — 1
Number of cases notified as Ophthalmia Neonatorum 2 1 3
Number of infants not entirely breast-fed whilst in
the home — — —
Number of maternal deaths — — —
Number of foetal deaths—
(a) Stillborn 4 1 5
(b) Within ten days of birth 1 1 2
Ante-natal cases admitted — 18 18
The highest fees charged during 1937/38 were £5 15s. 0d. (old Home), and £7 5s. 0d. (new
Home) for the two weeks, and the average fee charged was £3 5s. 8d.