There must be two separate delivery wards for each floor of the whole
lying-in institution, so arranged and connected _under cover_ that the
lying-in women may be removed after delivery to their own ward. And for
this purpose the corridors must admit of being warmed during winter,
especially at night, so as to be of a tolerably equable temperature.
Unlimited hot and cold water laid on, day and night, W.C. sink,
bath-sink, clean linen, must be close at hand.
In a pavilion hospital one single-bed ward should be attached to each
delivery ward, for an exhausted case after delivery, till she is able to
be moved to her own ward.
The delivery ward should be so lighted and arranged that it can be
divided, by curtains only, into three if not four compartments.
No woman being delivered should see another delivery going on at the
same time.
The delivery bedsteads stand in their compartments.
Each delivery bed should have window light on either side, and also
ample passage room all round and on both sides the bed.
Care should be taken that no bed should stand exactly between door and
window, on account of draughts.
The curtains, of washing material, are only just high enough to exclude
sight, not high enough to exclude light or air, and are made so as to
pull entirely back when not wanted. Each area enclosed by the curtains
should of course be sufficiently ample for pupils, attendants, and
patient; also for a low truck on broad wheels covered with india-rubber,
to be brought in, on which the bedstead with the clean warm bedclothes
is placed, and the newly-delivered woman conveyed to her own ward.
[A woman very much exhausted would be carried in the delivery bed to the
bye-ward attached to each delivery ward.]
The reason why there must be two delivery wards for each floor of a
lying-in institution, to be used alternately, one ‘off,’ one ‘on,’ is
that one delivery ward on each floor must be always vacant for thorough
cleansing, lime-washing and rest for a given period, say month and month
about.
It is understood that newly-delivered women cannot be removed from one
floor to another. And it is quite necessary to have the means of keeping
a corridor, along which a newly-delivered woman is to be moved, at a
proper temperature.
The position of the delivery wards should be as nearly as possible
equidistant from the lying-in wards, and should be such that the women
in labour, on their way to the delivery ward, need not to pass the doors
of other wards.
A separate scullery to each delivery ward is indispensable; such
scullery to be on at least an equal scale to that of ward sculleries.
Hot and cold water to be constantly at hand, night and day. A sink-bath
is desirable for immediately putting in water soiled linen from the beds
and the like.
The scullery should contain a linen-press, small range with oven, hot
closet at side of the fire-place, sink with hot and cold water, &c. A
small compartment should contain a slop-sink for emptying and cleansing
bed-pans, and a sink about six inches deep and sunk below the floor,
which is intended for filling and emptying a portable bath, and which
when not required for this might be used for soaking linen, &c.
Beyond the scullery, so as to be as far removed as may be from the
traffic of the main corridor and the noises of the delivery ward, should
be the bye-ward, with not less than 2,100 cubic feet of contents.