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23
ANTE AND POST NATAL CLINICS
The unified hospital and local authority services at the Lodge Road and
New Addington Clinics continued unchanged. The former premises have
been extended and altered on several occasions during the last 20 years.
The latest addition of a playroom for the children of mothers attending clinics
is described by the Chief Nursing Officer. It was a most successful project
under the Urban Aid Scheme.
Ante-natal clinics despite appointment schemes have peak attendance
periods when otherwise adequate accommodation seems insufficient. No adaptations
at Lodge Road will cope easily with this problem, and long term plans
envisage a unified obstetric service in a new maternity wing of the district
hospital. Since this should be forthcoming during the present decade it is unreasonable
to propose any major development on the Lodge Road site, and the
best use of existing premises is inevitable.

The numbers attending the Relaxation and Mothercraft classes increased
again in 1970 - Midwives, Health Visitors and Physiotherapists continue to
work together and combine to provide this service. In all 1,273 mothers attended
these classes and made 5,872 attendances.
PAEDIATRIC ASSESSMENTS
The co-ordination with the Maternity units was strengthened by the
successful experiment of a Corporation Senior Medical Officer attending at the
hospital for 3 sessions each week for the pre-discharge assessment of newly
born babies. This linkage of the Child Health and Hospital Paediatric services
was placed on a permanent basis during the year under review, when 1,212
babies were so examined. Obviously appropriate action is taken forthwith if
this is necessary, but routinely the results go forward to the Health Visitors
and the Medical Officers of Child Health Centres concerned with the further
developmental assessment of the children.