Annual report : 1934 / Clapham Maternity Hospital.

  • Clapham Maternity Hospital (London, England)
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report : 1934 / Clapham Maternity Hospital. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/36 (page 9)
    NURSES AND STUDENTS OF OTHER NATIONAEITIES (AFRICAN, INDIAN, etc.). During 1933 we received a questionnaire from the National Council of Women, asking if we would take foreign nurses for training. To this we replied in the affirmative and found we had already trained between 30 and 40 since 1912 of varying nationalities. We were then asked to attend a special meeting on the subject to give our views and ex¬ perience and to our surprise found we are the only Hospital with practical experience on the subject. Our belief is it is character, not colour, that counts. Dr. Sapara, of Eagos, states that the infantile mortality has been perceptibly lowered since 1912, when he first came and interviewed Dr. McCall and begged us to take Miss Ore Green, who was our first Nigerian student. Since then we have trained about 30 Africans and they are all now employed in their own country, mostly in good Government posts doing useful work. So much so, that the iVlake of Abeokuta, i.e., a ruling African chief, who received a New Year’s 1935 honour from the King, sent us his daughter to train as nurse and midwife, and in August, 1934, she and her friend successfully passed the C.M.B. Examination. This is probably the first. instance of the daughter of a ruling African chief having had midwifery training in a London hospital. If we, at the centre of our British Empire, would open our hospital doors a little wider to train our sisters, it would do much to unite the bonds of our Empire. These women would not only carry back to their own countries a special knowledge of nursing and midwifery, but also a realisation of the position which women now take in the furtherance of the welfare of humanity. There is rather more difficulty in keeping up the numbers of nurses and midwifery pupils in training; the money difficulties of the country are felt by everyone and the pay¬ ment of fees cannot always be faced by those who wish for training.