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8
requires better premises but while housing needs are so urgent
everything else must wait. It is hoped that the Brixton Centre
will be housed before the end of 1947 in a block of flats on the
County Council's Tulse Hill estate but that will only be a temporary
home until a new one fitting into the scheme under the National
Health Service Act is built.
Most of the welfare centre buildings are old and in some cases
have reached beyond the end of useful life so that it is uphill work
trying by example to encourage hygiene in such unattractive outof-date
premises. The plans for three new centres were in hand in
1939 and but for the war at least these would have been rehoused
in modern buildings some years ago, yet the war not only put a
stop to the erection of new premises but also to the normal upkeep
which accounts for much of the drab, shabby appearance.
So far as the health and welfare of mothers and children can be
statistically recorded, the infantile mortality rate of 35 and the
maternal mortality rate of 0.61, in each case much lower than ever
before, are the two principal pointers. Whatever the discomforts
and privations to which all are subject the most important sections
of the population have been outstandingly healthier than in any
previous period.
The evacuation scheme for confinements outside London has
relieved some of the strain upon the homes where room and convenience
for childbirth were often non-existent. The number
taking advantage of the scheme in 1946 was 481, compared with
729 in 1945, 643 in 1944 and 605 in 1943.
Child Life Protection.
974 visits and re-visits were made to foster mothers and nurse
children.
Foster mothers on Register at 31.12.46 32 (28)
Nurse children on Register at 31.12.46 34 (32)
Many inquirers are sent away unsatisfied because of the lack of
women willing to become foster mothers owing to more remuneration
and less arduous employment being readily available.
Care of Premature Infants.
A space is provided in the notification of births card for the
insertion of the child's weight, and all cases born in the district
weighing 5½ lbs. or under are followed up specially until they are one
month old.
Close co-operation is maintained between the hospitals and the
public health department in order that on returning home the