[Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, County of Zetland (Shetland Islands).

  • Shetland (Scotland). County Council.
Date:
1952
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1952] / Medical Officer of Health, County of Zetland (Shetland Islands). Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/42 (page 9)
    The selection of cases for hospital treatment is made by the medical practitioners. In practice the patients who are on the mainland of Shetland and in Burra Isle tend to go to hospital and expectant mothers In the North Isles are confined at home, except for a few selected by their doctors because of some expected complication. Ten of the District Nurse/Midwives are trained in giving gas and air anaesthesia. Practitioners attend almost all the domiciliary confinements to give the anaesthetic, and the nursing service's gas and air equipment is not much used; apparatus is kept In readiness to be sent to any area when necessary. 28 midwives notified their intention to practise midwifery in the county during the year. There were no midwives in practice other than those employed by the Local Authority or the Hospital Board. During the year there were no cases of puerperal pyrexia or of puerperal fever. There was one death of a mother from eclampsia. (Other figures are given on page 1 of the Appendix) . 6. HEALTH VISITING. Under conditions existing in this county it is not practicable to separate health visiting work from the other nursing duties undertaken by District Nurses. A District Nurse who is well known and respected in a household is far the best person to give advice on public health and preventive measures, and to teach hygiene and child welfare. The employment of a separate staff of women as Health Visitors (as is done in urban areas) would not be a success here . Only three of our District Nurses have the Health Visitor certificate, but others have had considerable experience in such work. Unfortunately it is so difficult to obtain relief nurses that we are not able to release district nursing staff to study for this certificate In the south. A nurse who has undergone a combined Queen’s and Health visitors training has the training required for work in a rural area of Shetland; I hope that some of the district nurse training schools will adopt as their normal curriculum one which includes training in Health Visitor's work. There are no hospital almoners In the county. The Matrons of the hospitals are accustomed to communicate directly with the District Nursoo about patients who are being discharged from hoepital,