[Report 1933] / Medical Officer of Health, Holland County Council (Lincolnshire).

  • Holland (England). County Council.
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1933] / Medical Officer of Health, Holland County Council (Lincolnshire). Source: Wellcome Collection.

    71/76 (page 57)
    SURVEY OF THE HEALTH SERVICES IN THE COUNTY. During the year the results of the survey of the County health services by the Ministry of Health were brought before the various Committees concerned. Under the heading of Maternity and Child Welfare the main criticisms were centred upon :— (1) The insufficiency of accommodation for maternity cases. —The County Council decided to give discretionary power to the County Medical Officer to arrange for the institutional treatment of difficult midwifery cases, but the question of ac- commodation of normal cases was to be left over for the present. (2) The number of mid wives in the County is inadequate.— The matter was left to the County Medical Officer to endeavour to arrange with certain Nursing Associations to extend their districts but the County Council were not prepared to take any further steps in the matter. Every endeavour has been made during the year to get Nursing Associations started in areas without nurses, and to get some to extend, but in the main it has been labour in vain. The only extension that has materialised has been the Oosberton District to cover Surfleet. This has been managed by providing the nurse with a car, so that she is now able to cover a larger district. In this County it is essential that every nurse in a rural area should have a car. Efforts have been made to secure interest in the formation of a Nursing Association in Gedney Dawsmere and Drove End, Gedney Hill district. Deeping St. Nicholas and Cowbit, Old Deake and Benington, Swineshead and Bicker, but in none of these have our efforts so far materialised. Obviously a nurse is needed as much, if not more, in any of these villages, as in Spalding, yet in Spalding there is a well organised flourishing association with three Queen’s nurses available, and only handywomen of the most unskilled and ignorant type are available in the villages mentioned. Nursing services, like our hospitals, have grown up on a voluntary basis, and voluntary services flourish where there are keen and energetic personalities who are prepared to give their time and money to the service. This cannot be expected in a thinly populated and widely .scattered area. Personally I see no chance whatever of securing nursing