Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950S

Squad was provided by most big London hospitals, and I believe by all regional hospitals, as an emergency backup for domiciliary midwifery. The service must have saved thousands of lives, because before the 1940s, when no service existed, a midwife could find herself entirely alone with any obstetric emergency - such as a mal-presentation, haemorrhage, cord prolapse, or placenta previa - and all she could do would be to call in the local GP who might or might not be skilled in midwifery.
     
    It was the proud boast of the Flying Squad of the London Hospital that it could reach any obstetric emergency in twenty minutes. But that was reckoning without a London smog. When the policeman contacted the hospital about Conchita no ambulance had been available to bring the Flying Squad. The smog caused acute and deadly respiratory failure in thousands of old people each year, and every doctor and ambulance was out on these cases. When one finally did return to the depot, the driver, who had been working non-stop for sixteen hours, was sent off duty, and another had to be found. Even then, a policeman had to cycle in front of the ambulance to guide it - hence the delay of nearly three hours. However, a registrar, a houseman, and a nurse from the obstetrics department had been sent by the hospital.
     
    Everything happens at once, so they say, and within minutes a GP also arrived on foot. God bless him, I thought. He looked exhausted. He had been working all day and all night, and very likely most of the night before, yet he had the professionalism and the courtesy to apologise for being late.
     
    With so much medical know-how in the house, it was necessary to have a case conference to decide the best course of action for mother and baby. We went down to the kitchen for this, and I asked Len to accompany me. Liz was left with her mother and the baby. The two ambulance men and the policemen joined us too - they couldn’t be asked to sit outside in the cold, and there was nowhere else for them to sit in the house. Sue, one of the older girls, made tea all round.
     
    I gave my case history, and handed over the recorded notes. All doctors were agreed that mother and baby must be transferred to hospital at once. Len was alarmed.
     
    “Does she ’ave to go? She won’t like it. She’s never been away from home before, she hasn’t. She’d be lost an’ frightened. I knows as ’ow she would. We can look after ’er. I’ll stop at home, an’ the girls can muck in an all, till she’s better.”
     
    The doctors looked at one another and sighed. Fear of hospital was commonplace. Among the older generation, it arose mainly from the fact that most of the hospital buildings were converted workhouses, which had been feared more than death itself. The doctors agreed that as Conchita was now safely delivered, if no post-natal complications arose, she probably could be treated at home. A course of antibiotics would clear the infection that was causing fever. The head injury, causing concussion and delirium, would heal with rest and quiet. They tried to point out that she would get more rest in hospital than at home, surrounded by children, but Len would have none of it, so they capitulated.
     
    However, the baby was another matter. He hadn’t been weighed, but my guess of between one and a half and two pounds was accepted. They all said twenty-eight weeks was barely viable, and that a living baby of that gestation must have hospital treatment, with the latest technological equipment, and twenty-four hour expert nursing and medical care. They suggested that he should be transferred at once to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children. Len looked dubious, but when they told him that without such care the baby would die, he readily agreed.
     
    We all went upstairs to the bedroom. I don’t know what these hospital doctors thought of having to squeeze past all the prams in the hallway and parting the washing flapping around their heads as they climbed the wooden stairs. Nor did I ask. But I smiled to myself.
     
    Conchita was sleeping, the tiny baby lying on her chest. One hand was protectively over it, the other lay limp by her side. She was smiling, and her breathing, although shallow, was regular and less rapid. I approached the bed and felt her pulse. It was slightly stronger, and regular, but still rapid. I counted 120 per minute, which, though abnormal, was an improvement. Liz was cleaning up quietly and eèfficiently, and