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attention during the confinement. There appears to be a certain
amount of disinclination on the part of Midwives to call in medical
aid as frequently as it is directed under the Regulations. It has
been suggested that this disinclination is possibly caused by the not
unnatural desire of the Midwife to make these calls for special
assistance as few as possible. It will be appreciated that whenever
such a call is made there is a possibility that the patient may be
asked to contribute something towards the payment of the Medical
Practitioner's fee, which quite apart from the added expense,
might raise doubts in the patient's mind as to the competency of
the Midwife engaged. Such cases of neglect to call in medical aid
are of course distinct breaches of the regulations, but it is difficult
to suggest how they can be overcome or obviated under the present
dual system of control in London, under which the supervising
authority is divorced from all local knowledge and actual contact
with the cases.
Children Act, 1908.
Part I of the Children Act, 1908, provides for the Local Authority
appointing one or more persons to be Infant Protection Visitors,
whose duty it shall be from time to time to visit any infants referred
to in any notice given under Part I of the Act, and the premises
in which they are kept, in order to ensure the proper nursing and
maintenance of such infants.
The Act enforces registration as to a foster mother of any
person who undertakes for reward the nursing and maintenance
of one or more infants under the age of seven years apart from their
parents for a longer period than 48 hours.
In June, 1920, the Greenwich Borough Council made application
to the London County Council in regard to the appropriate officers
of the Greenwich Borough Council being authorised to exercise the
powers of Infant Protection Visitors, and at the meeting of the
Greenwich Borough Council on 6th April, 1921, it was reported
that the London County Council were prepared to authorise the
the officers of the Greenwich Borough Council to exercise the powers
in question for a period of one year (renewed annually), in the place
of the visitors who had formerly been working under the direct
supervision of the London County Council.
Greenwich was the only Metropolitan Borough to which these
powers were delegated, but the London County Council communicated
with the other City and Metropolitan Borough Councils
inviting their views as to undertaking the duties on lines generally
similar to those obtaining in Greenwich.