On This Day, 30 May 1918

Evening Dispatch

Friday 30 May 1918

BIRMINGHAM HOSPITALS.

BIG DEFICITS REPORTED AT ANNUAL MEETING.

Satisfactory indications of the valuable healing work which it ceaselessly carried out in Birmingham specially in the interest of mothers and women sufferers were provided at the joint annual meeting, held to-day, of the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Women and the Birmingham Maternity Hospital. The annual report of each institution presented a number of interesting statistics.

In that of the hospital for women, it is started that the number of new cases at the outpatient department during the year was 3,250, a decrease on the number treated in 1916. The total number of new and old cases was 15,553, a decrease of 338 on the number last year.

To the in-patient department there were admitted 1,787 patients, an increase of 60 on the number in 1916. Of these, 406 patients were received in the private wards. There was 1,691 operations, as compared with 1394 in 1916.

Miss Shufflebotham acted as house surgeon during the year. Notwithstanding their military duties, the medical staff succeeded in carrying on their work at the hospital as usual, although the large amount of time they have devoted to it was only managed with great difficult. Efforts were made to reduce the chronic cases at the out-patient department, but the demand on the in-patient department was greater than ever.

The balance sheet showed that on the ordinary income and expenditure account there was a deficit of £8,632 4s. 2/1d., which was entirely due to the great increase in the cost of everything.

MATERNITY HOSPITAL.

 The report of the Maternity Hospital showed that there were 662 admissions, as compared with the 651 last year and the 544 in 1915. Forty-two pupil midwives were trained during the year and 10 who attended for lectures only, making a total of 32. Of these 50 passed the C.M.B. examination.

Seven women medical students and 11 men medical students applied for training and were accepted.

During the year the members of the Infant Health Committee have visited 140 new babies in their homes, and 103 who were on the books at the end of last year. In the in-patient department there were nine cases of twins.

Mrs. Feeney (the president), in moving the adoption of the two reports, said that they had had 60 new patients in the Women’s Hospital, and that this had involved an increase of operations. The fact that the death-rate was 1.3 per cent, represented the hospital’s greatest triumph.

Mr. J. Boultbee Brooks, who seconded, said that at the end of the year they had a deficit on the Women’s Hospital of £8,600, and on the Maternity Hospital of £6,087, both of which were higher than they were 12 months ago. The reports were adopted, and Mrs. Feeney was re-elected president.