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specially noteworthy as showing what can be well accomplished by
voluntary workers throughout a district such as the Borough, and how
municipal and voluntary organisations can work together, with great
value to the community. Voluntary help is a very valuable asset in
Public Health Administration in so far as maternity and child welfare
is concerned, and should be used to the utmost by a Sanitary
Authority, subject, of course, to such voluntary work being properly
organised. The difficulty is to obtain voluntary workers suitable for
the purpose in sufficient numbers.
Prior to the inauguration of the Lambeth Maternity and Child
Welfare Scheme in 1916, welfare work had been accomplished for
many years previously by voluntary organisations and general hospitals
(maternity departments), not only within the new Borough of Lambeth
but also within the old Parish of Lambeth. This voluntary work
required to be consolidated and attached to the official general public
health work of the District under the Medical Officer of Health, if the
m aximum amount of benefit and advantage were to be obtained, This
amalgamation of the work took time and was slow but sure, and finally
was crystalised into a scheme, which was approved by the Ministry of
Health as the Lambeth Maternity and Child Welfare Scheme, under
the provisions of the Maternity and Child Welfare Act, 1918. It is to
be hoped that such scheme will long continue in existence throughout
the Borough—a scheme that has already more than justified itself by
the results that have been actually obtained in welfare work (as shewn
by statistics).
Cornwall Nursery Hostel, Prince's Road.
The Cornwall Nursery Hostel, Prince's Road, was permanently
closed as an Institution under voluntary management on August 1st,
1924. This action had to be taken by the General Committee of
Management, owing to the original founder of the Hostel having
withdrawn her support (financial and otherwise) on account of the
resignation of the Honorary Consulting Physician, due to a difference
of medical opinion as to the value of the particular method of feeding
and treatment of the infants and children admitted (vide Annual
Report of the Medical Officer of Health for the Borough of Lambeth
for 1924).
The Hostel has been handed over to the Governors of St. Thomas's
Hospital and is now part of that Hospital's medical administration, and
was reopened as such to the public on November 1st, 1924, and
is no longer under a local representative committee of management,
and, consequently is no longer entitled to Borough Council grants as
part of the Lambeth Maternity and Child Welfare Scheme, having been
withdrawn from such Scheme by resolution of the Council on September
25th, 1924. Good and useful work is still being carried out at
the Hostel, full details being set out in the Annual Report of the
Institution that is published from St. Thomas's Hospital.