Annual report of the Sarawak Government Medical Department.

  • Sarawak. Medical Department.
Date:
[1950]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Sarawak Government Medical Department. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/84 (page 4)
    4. midwifery service to relieve pressure on the limited number of obstetric beds in the hospital and for other reasons, it was proposed to increase the training period, for midwives to two years. The object of this proposal was to enable sounder training to be given in ante-natal and post-natal care and to give trainees oppor¬ tunity for experience in domiciliary work, namely, in the environ¬ ment in which, after training, the majority of these women 'would work* An obvious advantage of initiation of this scheme at pre¬ sent's that, now, advantage can be taken, approval having been obtained from the U.N.I.C.E.F, organisation, of the presence of the U.lT.I.CiE.F* Midwife Tutor to initiate the work and guide it in its early stages. At the end of the year the scheme was under consideration of Government. (iii) Health Inspectors Five men were sent to Singapore in January to attend the course of training with a view to sitting the examination for the Certificate of the Royal Sanitary Institute. Of these, four were successful in the examination. The unsuccessful man will make a further attempt and three more men are ready to go to Singapore in 1951. In 1948 there were three certificated health inspectors in the Colony, At the end of 1950 there were nine. In the past year or two it had been hoped, with the assistance of the Sanitary Superintendent, to develop a syllabus of training which would satisfy the Royal Sanitary Institute and enable examinations for the Royal Sanitary Institute certificate to be held in Kuching. This hope has not yet been abandoned but discussion which the Director had with the Institute when he was in London suggests that it may be wiser to defer this project in the meantime. (iv) Health Visitors The development of the Health Visitor Service was serious¬ ly hindered by lack of personnel. Although the aim is to train suitable qualified nurses in health work, such could not be spared from the hospitals and even the less highly trained personnel, namely, trained midwives, it was decided to use as an expedient were not forthcoming in sufficient numbers. At the beginning of the year one trained nurse and two district midwives, as they are at present designated, were in training. By the end of the year the numbers had been increased to two trained nurses and four district midwives, small numbers in all conscience, but taking account of the shortage of nursing personnel, a real advance. The intention is to give the trained nurses, who have completed four years general nursing and midwifery training, one year’s public health training when, after passing a suitable exami¬ nation they will be rated as health visitors. The district milv.iv^ who, in the past, had completed one year’s midwifery training but, who in future will have two years’ midwifery training, will have a further three months training in sick children’s nursing and nine months training in public health nursing. On passing an appro¬ priate examination they will be rated as assistant health visitors. /(v)