View report page

23
out-workers. Tables are appended showing the distribution of out-workers as regards
trades in the Borough. Most of them are engaged in work connected with the making
of wearing apparel, artificial flowers, paper bags and boxes, and brushes.
Some 1,041 visits of inspection were made to places where home-work was being
carried on, and in connection with these 169 sanitary notices were served. The
cases of notifiable infectious disease occurring at out-workers' premises numbered 36
and included 14 of scarlet fever, 15 diphtheria and 7 pneumonia. The usual steps
were taken in connection with them by the officers of the sanitary authority.
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
The notified births numbered 2,276, and there were in addition some 74 still
births. Of the notifications, 1,546 were received from registered midwives practising
in the Borough. In addition, 219 births occurring in institutions outside Shoreditch
were notified on forms sent in weekly by the London County Council. Including
these, the live births notified during the year were approximately 88 per
cent. of the number registered during the year as compared with 88 in 1922, 98 in
1921, 85 in 1920, and 95 in 1919.
A summary of the work of the doctors and health visitors is appended
(pp. 68 and 69). It follows the general lines of previous years. To meet the needs
of the southern part of the Borough an additional infant welfare consultation was
established at the Town Hall early in the year under Dr. Radford, for Monday
afternoons.
The outstanding event of the year with respect to maternity and child welfare
in the Borough was the completion of the erection and the opening of the Model
Centre in the Kingsland Road. In recording this a brief review of this important
branch of public health work from its inception down to the present will not be out
of place in this report. The Notification of Births Act of 1907 was adopted in Shoreditch
in 1909, and came into operation in August of that year. The first municipal
health visitor was appointed, and entered on her duties in the following November.
In 1912 a second health visitor was appointed, and in the following year two Weighing
Centres for infants were established under the Borough Council. At this time also
the Shoreditch School for Mothers, a voluntary institution, was conducting a Centre
in the Borough, so that during 1913 there were three Centres, each attended by a
health visitor, one of whom was appointed by the voluntary body mentioned.
These Centres quickly demonstrated their value and were well attended. In
August, 1914, an intimation was received from the Local Government Board upon
the subject of a grant in aid of expenditure being available for maternity and child
welfare work, and at the same time defining the objects thereof as follows :—
1. To advise expectant mothers on matters affecting their condition at
the Centres or at their homes when necessary and to arrange for complicated
cases of pregnancy receiving proper hospital treatment.