VPRS 17483 Midwifery Department Discharge Book

Full description

This Discharge Book recorded the details of patients prior to their discharge from the Midwifery Department. The patients were either transferred to an Infirmary Department ward or allowed to go home. Since 1888, the Midwifery Department was housed in a separate building to the Infirmary, with their own dedicated medical staff to stop cross infection of patients.

Newborn babies were also recorded in the Discharge Book. The babies were transferred to the Children's Hospital for further treatment, or discharged without their mother to babies' homes prior to adoption.

Each patient's details were recorded in a single page column format and the entries were arranged according to date of discharge. The column headings comprise: Surname; Christian Name; Date of Discharge; M. or S. (Married or Single); Male or Female (has acronyms L.M. - Live Male, L.F. - Live Female, S.B.F. - Still Born Female, S.B.M. - Still Born Male, L.W.A - Labour Ward Annexe and L.S.A. unknown,); Address (both the home address of the patient or the adoption agency for the babies).

Hospital staff were not strict in their observance of the column headings; the details were not always entered in the correct place and are full of acronyms, some of which are no longer understood.

When mothers or babies were transferred internally e.g. Infirmary or Prem Room, this was detailed in both the Male or Female column and Address columns. The latter column recorded the destination of adult patients and sometimes unaccompanied infants.


Series History
Prior to transfer to Public Record Office Victoria, the records in this series were maintained as part of the RWH Archives in RWH series number 0405.