[Report 1943] / Medical Officer of Health, Isle of Ely County Council.

  • Isle of Ely (England). County Council. n 78027969.
Date:
1943
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1943] / Medical Officer of Health, Isle of Ely County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (ii) Supervision of Midwives. This brings us to a great event from the point of view of the supervision of Domiciliary Midwives in the County. At the beginning of 1940 it was quite evident that the supervision of Midwives which had been carried out previously by the Woman Assistant County Medical Officer (when there was one, and when she had time) was not on a sound basis and that a non-medical supervisor of Midwives was very necessary indeed. The demand for such a person became more clamant from certain of the District Nursing Associations who eventually decided that if they all got together into a County Nursing Association, in view of the fact that they carried out a large part of the Domiciliary Midwifery by virtue of their agreements with the County Council made under the Midwives Act, 1936, they would speak with a powerful voice on the subject of having a non-medical supervisor. Sometime before the war I understand that an attempt had been made to form a County Nursing Association but it was unsuccessful, but this time agreement was reached by all the Associations with the exception of two, one of which eventually decided to join the Association, and now only Chatteris remains in splendid isolation, though it is fair to say that the Chatteris Nursing Association does not deal with the Domiciliary Midwifery for their area. Eventually the proposed appointment was agreed to by the County Council and a non-medical supervisor was appointed in May, 1942. She also acts as Superintendent Health Visitor and County Nursing Superintendent and the only slight difficulty is that she is employed by the County Nursing Association and not by the Council thus bringing in dual control unnecessarily, though without question her appointment has been a great step forward. (2) INFANT WELFARE. Strenuous efforts have been made to maintain and increase the number of Welfare Centres in the County and the Evacuation Scheme gave us an opportunity to do so, and although that which was conducted at the County Hall primarily to serve the North side of March had eventually to be abandoned through lack of support, . the Manea Welfare still continues though it is only very small. An unsatisfactory feature of several of the Infant Welfare Clinics is that they are held on licensed premises. While there is of course no intention of criticising the public houses as such and while we must be very grateful for the help they have given us in making extra rooms available, the holding of Infant Welfare Centres in such places can hardly be regarded as ideal. Reference is made in Section II. as to the need for new premises for clinics and the above remarks are merely emphasising the necessity for them.
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