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These schemes differ essentially, that for the Board of Education
is concerned with the teaching of mothers and supervision of
children from birth to school age, and there is no provision for
treatment of any kind.
The scheme of the Local Government Board on the other hand
is concerned principally with the provision of treatment for mothers
in pregnancy and child-birth, and treatment of children from birth
to school age.
The schemes seem to overlap one another to a certain extent
because it is impossible to provide treatment without a certain
amount of supervision, or to supervise and teach without making
some provision for treatment.
To carry out the suggestion of the Board of Education would
undoubtedly be the easier as far as London is concerned and would
not entail embarking on any new and elaborate schemes. In
Bermondsey it would mean an extension of our work more or less
on its present lines. A beginning could be made by appointing
two more Health Visitors and in this way not only expectant mothers
would be kept under more or less supervision, but it would be possible
to visit all infants, extend our present class, and where medical
treatment was desirable or necessary, to follow up cases, and see
that it was carried out. At present it is our custom in the babies'
class or where the Health Visitor finds any poor people in the
course of their visits whose infants require treatment, to give them
a card referring them to the Children's Department of Guy's Hospital.
We find the advice is nearly always followed, but we confine
ourselves almost exclusively to children under one year of
age, and this age period could easily be extended.
The scheme by the Local Government Board would be more
difficult to carry out in its entirety since it aims at the provision
of clinics or dispensaries for the treatment of mothers, babies and
young children. It seems to me that in London there is sufficient
treatment for all these purposes provided by the general and special
hospitals, and dispensaries as well as the L.C.C. Clinics. What is
rather required is that pregnant women should know where to apply
should they desire advice or treatment. Should it prove that there
is not sufficient accommodation provided at present, then the question
of the establishment of dispensaries and clinics referred to
could be taken into consideration.