No dispensary, especially no dispenser, is needed in a lying-in
institution.
A medical officer’s room is necessary. The medical officer is not
resident. He makes his morning and evening visit, and is called in by
the head midwife for any difficult case. He gives instruction,
scientific and practical, to the pupil midwives. [These lectures are
given in the pupil midwives’ mess-room.]
In the medical officer’s room should be kept the instruments, to which a
fully qualified head midwife also has a key. The medical officer keeps
the notes of cases, &c., and of instruction to the pupil midwives in
this room.
The few, very few, drugs needed in a good lying-in institution are kept
here, or in the head midwife’s sitting-room.
A waiting-room is necessary.
There must be a room where the head midwife can examine a woman, to know
if labour is imminent.
This might be done in the medical officer’s room or the waiting-room.