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Dental Treatment.
By arrangement between this Council and the County Education Authority, expectant
and nursing mothers and children under five years of age attending the Maternity and
Child Welfare Centres are enabled to have dental treatment and advice, including if necessary
the provisions of dentures.
The number of attendances—1,068—is satisfactory, showing that mothers are coming
more and more to realise the importance of the examination and care of their own teeth at a
time, as during pregnancy, when there is a greater risk of permanent damage being caused
by the drain of calcium from the system, and also to realise that the care of temporary
teeth is quite as important as, if not more important than, the condition of permanent teeth
of young children.
(For statistics of dental treatment see Appendix, Table XXI. The figures show a
grand total of 1,068 attendances, compared with 1,153 for1945-)
Wartime Day Nurseries.
The three wartime day nurseries continued to care for the children of working
mothers and certain mothers in distressed home circumstances. There was all through the
year a considerable waiting list for places in these nurseries. One nursery, in requisitioned
premises, was closed during the year.
The day nurseries continue to prove of excellent value as a place for the satisfactory
up-bringing of young children from the tiniest age (babies from two weeks old have been
admitted to these nurseries), for the education of toddlers, for training in manners and
behaviour, for the training of young girls in the care and management of children, and as
the means of constant health propaganda, from the Public Health staff to mothers and also
fathers.
It is noteworthy that while childish infections are not escaped by the children attending
the Southall nurseries, the spread of these in the nurseries themselves is limited, and that
in our experience the risk of contracting infectious disease by a child attending a day nursery
is no greater than in ordinary home life.
During the year, two members of the day nursery staff obtained the diploma of the
National Society of Children's Nurseries.
PREVALENCE OF, AND CONTROL OVER, INFECTIOUS AND OTHER
DISEASES
There was a considerable increase in the number of cases of whooping cough, and
four deaths due to this disease are more than normal.
In the early part of the summer there were a number of cases of dysentery. Immediate
investigation was made into all possible food sources which might be expected to cause
this type of infection, but nothing conclusive was found and the outbreak did not assume
epidemic proportions. No cases were notified after September.
The incidence of diphtheria was greatly decreased from 31 notified in 1945 to 15
in 1946, and all these cases made a satisfactory recovery.
Provision of Antitoxin.
The Council provides antitoxin free to local medical practitioners for cases of
diphtheria in the district.
The Ministry of Health has also sanctioned the supply of tetanus antitoxin by the
Council to local practitioners if such is required.
Diphtheria and tetanus antitoxin can always be obtained at the Health Department
during office hours or at the Isolation Hospital at other times.
Under the scheme for the provision of insulin for necessitous cases not covered by
other schemes, 17 people were supplied during 1946, either free or at part cost.
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