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With regard to treatment of children under school age,
I wish to put on record the help afforded in this respect by
voluntary agencies. I would particularly instance the great
kindness of Dr. Alice King, of South London Hospital, in
seeing many children sent for expert diagnosis and treatment.
To Guy's Hospital and Great Ormonde Street Children's
Hospital, not a few cases have been sent, with neverfailing
benefit.
A limited amount of elementary treatment has been
undertaken at the centres and at the Municipal Offices.
This has consisted of simple medications, massage and
dressing.
But the great difficulty with which any centre has to
contend is its tendency to develop into an out-patient
department, to which come mothers who are either too poor
to afford private medical provisions, or who wish to avoid
incurring expenditure, which may, of necessity, be considerable.
The diverting of those cases to the appropriate
sources of treatment is by no means simple, having regard
to the particular circumstances and necessities of each case.
The family doctor's aid is naturally the proper channel into
which to steer them, but too often it is obvious at the very
outset that by no stretch of imagination can adequate treatment
be paid for, or repeated journeys to a London Hospital,
and it is this consideration and the consideration that