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As was to be expected, during the first months of the war the Maternity
and Child Welfare Services were disorganised. The services of the Municipal
Health Visitors were utilised as nurses in charge of first aid posts, but at the end
of the same year there was a drift back of families from the reception areas and the
Health Visitors returned to their normal duties. The intensive air raid attacks
on London towards the end of 1940 in which Camberwell suffered very severely
caused the normal working of the Maternity and Child Welfare services to be
again interrupted.
In the early part of 1941 the Council, with the approval of the Ministry of
Health, regrouped the Infant Welfare Centre districts of the Borough. This
resulted in the work being directed from five Centres instead of eleven and the
curtailment of other services.
In the following year the Council, at the request of the Ministry of Labour
and National Service, initiated and developed a scheme for the establishment of a
number of war-time nurseries in various parts of the Borough. This programme
was completed during 1943 when there were twelve nurseries available for mothers
employed in the war effort, seven Municipally directed on behalf of the Ministry
of Health, and five, which were set up in Rest Centres, being under the control
of the L.C.C.; the Council, however, were responsible for the admission and
medical supervision of the children entering the Rest Centre Nurseries. The
total place capacity of the nurseries was 395 children.
Unfortunately, in the following year, two of the Municipal nurseries were
irreparably damaged and a rest centre nursery was temporarily closed following
enemy action damage. In spite of the bombing that took place in 1944 efforts
were made by the Council to bring within the Home Help Scheme cases of sickness
of mothers who had living with them children under five years of age for whom no
alternative arrangements could be made, but this extension of the Service was
subject to the needs of expectant mothers having first been met from -the limited
panel of helpers available for this Service. The Problem of the illegitimate child
also received attention the Council deciding to guarantee payments to fost( r
mothers for their services.
Closer supervision by the Health Visitors of premature infants and measures
to secure greater co-operation between the Maternity Units of the various hospitals
receiving Camberwell mothers for confinement and the Public Health Department
were also features of the year's work.
With the cessation of hostilities in 1945 the Council gave early consideration
to the need for additional Infant Welfare facilities in view of the return of evacuees
to the Metropolis and an anticipated rise in the birth rate. As a result the Amott
Road Voluntary Association Centre which had been used as a Wardens Post
during the war, was re-opened as an Infant Welfare Centre under Municipal
direction.
The possibility of establishing an additional Infant Welfare Centre in the
northern part of the Borough was investigated and the St. Antholin's Centre in
the Nunhead area was taken over by the Council from the Voluntary Association
and developed on Municipal lines. The Toddlers Clinics, which were such an
important and popular feature of the Infant Welfare Centre service before the
war were also re-established in this year.