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Very much is due to the unceasing efforts of the Health Visitors
to educate the mothers. That this process is slow and does not
readily yield results which are measurable is only too well known.
Courage, patience, and persistent endeavour to inculcate good
mothercraft are factors essential in a staff of Health Visitors. These
have been constantly exhibited by the present staff, and every
credit is due to them for loyal perseverance in work which sometimes
seems without avail.
As some small evidence of the value of the educational work it
is of interest to record that of a total of 304 deaths occurring under
5 years during 1924 only 26 were attributed to diarrhœa and sickness.
Several factors have contributed to this much desired result, but
it is no unusual event for a mother to announce that her baby was
beginning an attack of diarrhœa and sickness, but she herself
stopped it, by adopting the simple measures of which she had been
frequently told at the Centre.
More and more are the mothers recognising that the Centres
exist to give advice on how to keep well. Frequently the lament is
heard from them, " These places did not exist when I was a child."
The following table shows the maximum number of attendances
made by mothers with infants at each of the Centres, and also the
average attendance for the year:—
Maximum
Attendance.
Average
Attendance.
Centre.
145
91
98, Rotherhithe New Road
(Morning and Afternoon)
Town Hall, later 110, Grange Road
158
110
(Morning and Afternoon)
Oxley Street
110
61
(Morning and Afternoon)
Trinity Road (Afternoon)
57
32
Rosebery Street (Afternoon)
94
61
The maximum number attending the Toddler's Centre was 30,
and the average 23.