This blog has been researched and written by Hilary Love, one of the volunteers on our maternity care project. Project volunteers are researching maternity care in Northumberland with particular focus on Castle Hills Maternity Home, Berwick, and Mona Taylor Maternity Home, Stannington. We are also researching in less detail some of the other Maternity Homes in the county. This blog provides a brief history of maternity provision at Bridge End Maternity Hospital, Corbridge, Northumberland.
The project is supported by the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Bright Charity and the Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust. We will be posting more blog content from the project over the coming months.
Bridge End Maternity Hospital started life as a large end terrace late 19th century house. It was extended prior to 1938 to serve as a maternity hospital. Two late 19th century terraced houses on an adjacent site are thought to have been used as staff accommodation. Upon closure the building became a public house and has since been split into private apartments.
The fifty-first Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Northumberland County Nursing Association, for the twelve months ended 31st March 1948, was written on the eve of the transfer of the domiciliary midwifery and general nursing services to the County Council and the dissolution of the County Nursing Association. Care Committees were formed to function from July 1948. The report sets out information about the Hospital just before it was became part of the new National Health Service. We learn that in March 1948, 18 patients were admitted, including one for ante-natal treatment. The Maternity Hospital had 13 beds. The hospital fees make interesting reading:
Public Ward – members £2 12s 6d per week; non- members £3 10s 0d per week.
Semi-Private Wards – members £5 5s 5d per week; non- members £6 10s 0d per week.
Private Wards – “Blue” Room £12 12s 0d per week; Others – £8 8s 0d per week.
We also learn about the future management of the Bridge End Maternity Hospital – “When the Regional Hospital Board takes over the hospital on July 5th, it will come under it will come under the Management Committee of the Hexham Group of Hospitals and we hope that the local interest which has served it so generously and well since it was started in 1931 will continue to support it in whatever ways may be opened in the future.
Grateful thanks are recorded to Miss Harrison, the Matron for 13 years, and to the staff.”