M 40
V.-MATERNITY & CHILD WELFARE.
The maternity hospitals under Government and voluntary control provided accommodation for 358 beds in 1937, of which the largest number were to be found in the Tsan Yuk Hospital (sixty beds) under the control of the Medical Department.
Beds were also available in a large number of maternity homes, of which seventy-five were inspected during the year.
As from the 1st of January, 1937, the practice of midwifery habitually and for gain became a punishable offence; Wan P'os or handy women who had practised midwifery in Hong Kong for two or more years previously and who enrolled as midwives being exempted from this prohibition. As the result of this concession, 111 Wan P'os were enrolled in 1937. By degrees, this type of untrained midwife will disappear in the same way as the "Sairey Gumps" in the United Kingdom.
By the end of the year, 395 names were to be found in the Midwives Register.
Thirty-seven candidates satisfied the examiners at the examinations carried out under the auspices of the Midwives Board.
The Medical Department employs sixteen midwives, who were located as follows:
Chinese Public Dispensaries at Aberdeen, Kowloon City, Shaushuipo, Shaukiwan, Stanley & Yaumati, and at Government Dispensaries at Ko Tung, Sai Kung, Sham Tseng, Tai O, Tai Po, and Un Long.
These midwives render free service to the poor in their own homes. They visit the ante- and post-natal mother and newborn child for a period of seven days after birth.
Visits to expectant mothers numbered 2,528, and to puerperal mothers 12,919. During the last-named, 12,215 demonstrations were given to the mothers in the washing of their babies.
The 2,653 individual mothers visited were mostly cases of normal labour but included twelve abortions, twenty-two miscarriages and premature births, and thirty-seven still-births. In fifty-nine instances, the mothers were taken by ambulance to hospital, principally on account of delayed labour and usually after the Medical Officers from the various dispensaries had been called in.
Apart from deaths amongst these complicated cases, only one mother attended by the Government midwives died.