Heilbrigðisskýrslur - 01.12.1938, Side 171

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Midwives.
The country is divided into about 200 districts, one qualified midwife
being appointed for each of them except in Reykjavík where there are
two. In addition to this there are about 10 practising midwives in
Reykjavík, but only very few in other parts of the country, except for
one or two in the largest villages. The officially appointed midwives
in the towns receive their salaries from the municipality in question
whereas in the rural districts they are paid % by the Treasury and %
from the rural council concerned. rl'he amount of the salary is kr. 300.00
in districts with 300 inhabitants or less, but in the more populous ones
kr. 300.00 plus kr. 10.00 for each 50 inhabitants over 300. The salaries
rise after 10 years bv kr. 100.00, but must not exceed kr. 1500.00 a year
besides a cost of living bonus if it is payable (before the war it was
according to general rules 25% on all salaries of kr. 3.000.00 and under).
Those who call in a midwife have to pay her not less than kr. 7.00
for attending a woman in labour and assisting at the birth of a child,
and kr. 2.50 for each dav she stays with a woman in confinement, but
kr. 1.00 for each call. In this way the midwives ordinarily receive about
kr. 25.00 to kr. 35.00 for each birth. The scattered nature of the popula-
tion has its effect here too and the districts covered by the mídwives
are so sparsely populated that each midwife has to attend very
few births. This may best be seen from the fact that of a total number
of about 2.500 births a year in the whole country, about 900 are in
Reykjavík; this makes an annual average of about 8 births for each
midwife outside Revkjavík. There are, indeed, instances when for a
whole year not a single child was born in some of the districts. This
is the reason why most midwives are not dependent on midwifery as
a chief occ.upation, but are housewives, by far the greatest number
of them being farmers’ wives who are prepared to attend to their
duties as midwives when needed. The midwives are most frequently
in charge of the vaccination against smallpox, each in her own district.
For each case of vaccination they receive a remuneration from the
Treasury (kr. 0.35 in the rural districts and kr. 0.20 in the towns and
villages).
Nurses.
All the chief hospitals employ qualified nurses, but private nursing
will hardly be found outside Reykjavík. There are also school nurses in
some of the larger towns and nurses engaged in other branches of
health protection, especially in protection against tuberculosis. It is
only very rarely that we find qualified nurses working in the rural
districts of the country, but it sometimes happens that nursing societies
or womens’ institutes employ girls who may be sent out to assist in
homes in cases of illness. It is not primarily the duty of these girls
to engage in proper sick nursing, for which they are as a rule not
qualified, but rather to assist the housewives in the domestic work or
take charge of it if the mistress of the house cannot do it because of
illness. This frequently comes in very useful and might be more gene-
rally practised than it is at present,