Annual report of the Medical Department / Colony of the Gambia.

  • Gambia. Medical Department
Date:
[1930]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Medical Department / Colony of the Gambia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/72 (page 17)
    V. MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE. During January-November, 1930, Dr. Helen Hendrie acted as Honorary Physician in charge of the Mother and Child Welfare Clinics. Unfortunately the Nursing Sister, Miss Storey, was invalided in January and did not return till September. During the eleven months some idea of the amount of clinical material put through hand may be gathered from the figures in the subjoined table. It is known that many sick babies were rescued from serious and fatal illness by receiving saline injections in the Clinic but were not recorded as patients. In the table columns 2 and 3 include infants and children of several years old : indeed at times the work was like that of the medical side of a Sick Children Hospital. Month. Ante-natal Visits. Weighing. Sick Infants Visits. Total Births. Waiting List. January 508 556 1,063 27 February 458 544 1,289 19 March 565 876 1,183 25 April ... 598 724 1,532 32 May. 391 710 1,375 16 June ... 472 573 1,881 28 July. 658 677 2,335 15 August 832 658 2,923 26 September ... 1,141 692 2,653 23 October 1,050 618 1,992 36 November ... 865 459 1,272 35 December 602 427 922 39 1930 Total . 8,140 7,514 20,420 321 180 1929 Total . 2,880 5,781 7,918 266 — Ward opened February, 1930. Live births 1930 ... 297 Still births ... ... 24 321 *Tetanus ... ... 1 *An enquiry was made into this case and Clinic Nurses exonerated from all blame, it being proved that there was native interference with the case. Ophthalmia ... Nil Post partum Sepsis 1 Died. Eclampsia. 1 Died, prior to confinement and the patient had refused to remain in ward for treatment. Transverse presenta¬ tion with rupture of uterus. 1 Operation unsuccessful, died. The deaths of infants born under the Clinic, as far as can be ascertained after careful inquiry, were twenty-two. With 297 live births recorded, the Mother and Child Welfare work gives an infant mortality rate of 74 which is very satisfactory. The maternal mortality figure (puerperium) is 0-9 per cent. For the whole town 350 live births have been recorded so that the Mother and Child Welfare Clinics are now managing 85 per cent, of all confinements. [293214] 3