MATERNITY CASES

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12425, 20 April 1926, Page 9

MATERNITY CASES

HANDLING AT HOSPITALS GREATER FACILITIES URGED “POLICY OF PREPAREDNESS” "Each, hospital district should provide the necessary accommodation and services for maternity patients, apart from, but in close proximity, so far as possible, to the general hospital and under the same administration. This Is one of the recommendations of Dr. M. T. MacEachern, who is reporting upon New Zealand hospitals. He recommends (1) That each nurse-in-training and resident medical offioer should have carefully supervised instruction and experience in this work. (2) That there shouict be one of the honorary medical . staff present at* each confinement to supervise the technique and be prepared for any emergency or complication which might arise at any moment and—- ‘ (3) That the ante-natal clinics be under the direct supervision of the honorary medical staff and the resident medical officers be present as well as the nurses.

At present the maternity wotfk of the Dominion is not under as much direct medical supervision as is necessary. The medical officer being on call only in case anything goes wrong. It must he remembered that very few maternity cases are absolutely normal and the line of demarcation between the normal or physiological and the abnormal or pathological is not infrequently suddenly obliterated, and the change from the former state to the latter may he but a few seconds. Therefore the policy must of necessity be pne of .preparedness.