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Home Helps.
187 (151) applications and home helps provided-
cost to Council £257.6s.2d.
Again it is possiblo to record that thore has been no falling
in finding a home help but the position is becoming Increasingly
difficult and the rate of remuneration asked i3 much higher, up
£3 for the fortnight compared with £l to £1.10.0. for the fortnight
before the war.
There has been much talk of home helps and a home help serv
which obviously lacks a dotailed knowledge of what is required.
A home help is needed to take the mother's place when she is
confined either at home or in hospital, or is ill or for any other
reason unable to look after the home and family. Among other
duties the children have to be given breakfast and got ready for
school, rations have to be purchased and so on which for all
practical purposes limit a home help's activities to one family
with children, as she cannot easily get two lots of children read
for school at the same time in two separate homes. Again the
home help has usually some domostic ties of her own or she would
have been found employment by the Ministry of Labour long before.
She will therefore desire to work near her home and
incidentally be able to draw her own rations as well as her patier
to avoid queueing twice. More important still if she shops as a
stranger in a strange neighbourhood her chances of marketing well
are likely to be poor. A whole time home help is not therefore
the easy solution to a difficult problem which some would have
people to believe. The best guarantee of success in a home help
is to get the friend or noighbour or relative who is prepared
to stay away from work for a couple of weeks to look after the
home, somebody well known to the applicant and somebody who must
have monetary compensation towards her loss of wages. Whore
no such friend, neighbour or relative is available there can
usually be found in oach welfare district one or two older women
known to the health visitor who aro ready in emergency "to oblige"
The uniformed, well paid, whole time, official, home help
envisaged by many is an expensive luxury for whom work of some
sort must be found between the times when she is not doing the
housework for the disabled mother. Whole time too means so many
hours work a week, and who will be in a position to certify a
wages sheet with scattered work, with such infinite possibilities
of fraud and be able to satisfy the district auditor as well?
Dentures for expectant and nursing mothers.
39 (22) applications received and dentures providodcost
to Council £138.123.6d.
The increase in the scale of assessment which entitles
many more women to apply for help has led to a considerable
interest on tho part of expectant and nursing mothers who aro
gradually beginning to take advantago of tho generous assistance
now provided.
Sterile Maternity Outfits.
Nil (Nil)
Obstetric and Gynaecological Consultants.
1 call (No calls)