Volume 1

International studies on the relation between the private & official practice of medicine with special reference to the prevention of disease / conducted for the Milbank Memorial Fund by Sir Arthur Newsholme.

  • Newsholme, Arthur, Sir, 1857-1943.
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: International studies on the relation between the private & official practice of medicine with special reference to the prevention of disease / conducted for the Milbank Memorial Fund by Sir Arthur Newsholme. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    68/258 (page 64)
    thirty midwives are received every year for training. In rural districts the local council are rec^uired to appoint as many midwives as are required, the Ministry of Interior deciding the number needed on the advice of the Board of Health. In towns and fairly thickly peopled rural areas these appointments may remain in abeyance when it is proved that there is an adequate supply of midwives engaged in private practice. The supply is not held to be adequate unless at least two midwives are practising in the neigh- bourhood. In 1928 there were 697 district midwives. Private prac- titioner midwives attend women in confinement in all stations in life. A chief Government official informed me that a midwife had attended his wife at the birth of each child, and this appeared to be the general experience. No exceptional difficulty is stated to be experienced in difficult cases, for consultant doctors with special obstetric ex- perience are available in towns, and in rural districts the district medical officer has much experience in difficult midwifery. Most births occur at home. As a rule, only complicated cases are treated in hospitals, with the exception of the Rigshospital for unmarried women and a few private nursing-homes. Not allowing for births in institutions, there is one midwife in Denmark for about 400 births. Some sickness insurance societies pay insured women 2 to 3 kroner a day during ten days after confinement, and may pay for a consultant doctor when needed. In counties and in cities the health officer confers at least annually with each midwife practising in a given adminis- trative area j and during the year midwives are supervised by the district medical officer. The local official midwife is provided with a house, is given a salary of 700 to 1,000 kroner, and, in addition, is paid for each case in accordance with the patient’s means, the scale being officially specified. She is pensionable, and must retire at the age of seventy. A fourteen days’ post- S^^duate course is offered free. The midwife does her own antenatal work, but must call in a doctor for any abnor-