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104
there are the following voluntary hospitals in and adjacent to the Borough
to which the great majority of cases now find their way—St. Thomas's
Hospital, Royal Waterloo Hospital for Women and Children, Belgrave
Hospital for Children, King's College Hospital, the Clapham Maternity
Hospital, and the Brixton Dispensary. Where school clinics are readily
accessible these might well be utilised, but it should be remembered that
many schoolchildren who are found to require treatment at the school
clinics are later transferred to the voluntary hospitals which have a scheme
of co-operation with the County Council for their treatment. Seeing that
the Borough is so well situated for making arrangements at so many readily
accessible hospitals where advice and treatment of the highest order is
available, the suggestion in the circular of co-operation in the use of the
County Council school clinics only would seem inapplicable except in Norwood
where there is no other place so readily accessible.
An informal and tentative approach has been made in the direction of
a scheme of co-operation with the voluntary hospitals who would be
likely to welcome the suggestion if it were put before them, when a
really comprehensive scheme to cover the detection and early treatment
of every ailment and disease could be expected to mature.
3. Day Nurseries.
On the instructions of the Maternity and Child Welfare Committee,
who envisaged the addition of three day nurseries which with the Cynthia
Mosley Day Nursery should provide one for each Parliamentary Division
of the Borough, a survey of the expenditure involved and of possible sites
has been undertaken. First, the cost of maintaining some of the municipal
day nurseries in and near London has been ascertained, but the comparative
costs vary within such wide limits that it is difficult to form a just appreciation.
The costs differ between different types, whether in converted or adapted
houses, or in premises specially erected for the purpose, and also largely
depend upon the numbers of children who can be accommodated. In more
than one instance the Medical Officer of Health approached was so
uncertain of the comparative value of the statistics he sent that he advised
application to the Cynthia Mosley Day Nursery—which is, of course, the
most up-to-date and finished institution of its kind in London—not realising
that it is situated in Lambeth.
The following tabulated statement gives an outline of the costs in a
number of municipal day nurseries, and the cost of the Cynthia Mosley
Day Nursery which was approximately {5,700, and the total cost per child
per day, 1s. 10d., including the cost of food 7½d., is here inserted for
comparison.