ACADEMIA Letters The Establishment of the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital Maternity Wing in Swaziland Bonsile Ndlangamandla As early as 1927, Swazi women were encouraged to come into the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital (RFMH) for childbirth. The administration of the hospital was eager to ofer proper midwifery services for Swazi mothers because there was great concern about the number of infant and maternal deaths. The registration of Swazi births and deaths was not compulsory such that it was difcult for Dr. David Hynd (the Medical Superintendent) to raise the nec- essary alarm for the number of deaths that occurred yearly. Nonetheless, in 1932 the local branch of the British Red Cross Society took interest and provided a grant towards the pro- vision of maternity and child welfare services by the RFMH. As a result, Miss Ruby Sipple, a European midwife, initiated weekly child welfare and antenatal clinics for mothers were in 1933, in a small room and veranda at the RFMH. Also, the grant helped in funding lectures that were given to Swazi women in the areas surrounding the hospital; as well as European women in Bremersdorp (Manzini) and Siteki. Accommodation set apart for antenatal and child welfare clinics at the hospital became too small due to a 100% increase of mothers coming in for delivery. As a result, Dr. Hynd proposed the establishment of a Maternity and Child Welfare Clinic. Apart from the British Red Cross Society, King Sobhuza II and local chiefs also took great interest in the building of the maternity and welfare block at the RFMH. The King appointed a special committee of chiefs of the district surrounding the RFMH to work with Dr. Hynd regarding the establish- ment of the Maternity and Child Welfare Block. The committee comprised thirteen chiefs, two Nazarene preachers, and two community members. In a meeting held at the hospital in December 1934, the chiefs present expressed the need for providing a building where expec- tant mothers who were coming into the hospital in increasing numbers for childbirth could be housed. They also mentioned the difculty they would have in building it on their own Academia Letters, January 2022 Corresponding Author: Bonsile Ndlangamandla, bonsilendlangamandla@gmail.com Citation: Ndlangamandla, B. (2022). The Establishment of the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital Maternity Wing in Swaziland. Academia Letters, Article 4761. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL4761. 1 ©2022 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0