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Three premature baby outfits have been provided by the Borough Council oi
loan free of charge to those homes where a premature infant is born and wher
inadequate facilities are available for nursing the infant at home or for variou
reasons transfer to hospital is not desired. Each outfit includes a treasure cot
blankets, infant clothes, hot-water bottles, thermometers, feeding pipettes, etc
Two of these outfits were loaned for several weeks during 1947 to a home in whicl
twin premature infants were born. They were greatly appreciated both by th
parents and the midwife in charge of the case.
Home Helps and Domestic Helps.
These services have continued to expand, and in the case of Domestic Hel]
the service has grown rapidly and considerably during the period under review. Ii
order to build up a more efficient and more easily controlled band of workers, th
establishment of regularly employed Council Helps was increased from 6 to 2C
towards the end of the year, in addition to the continued building up of the panel o
approved Helps available on an intermittent basis.
As will be seen from the following figures both applications for the service, am
women available to do the work, increased considerably. Even so, the demand
especially in the case of aged and infirm people, is always greater than the supply.
As will be realised the average length of stay of a Help in confinement cases i
usually 2 weeks, though there have been an increasing number of Home Help case
where extension of the service has been granted for varying periods. In Domesti
Help cases, however, the help extends over varying periods, many of them indefinitely
The majority of them are part-time cases, where the number of hours help requirei
may vary considerably from only 3 hours to 20 or 30 a week, and this part of th
service calls for a great deal of organisation satisfactorily to fit in as many a
possible of those so urgently in need of help.

At the end of the year the following were on the Borough Council's Approved List of
Home Helps available for both services :—
13 employed on regular basis.
36 on intermittent basis (15 whole-time and 21 part-time).