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27
Health to report as to existing resources within the Borough for
obtaining information in such cases."
The Committee recommended the Council: —
"That our action be approved."
The Committee's recommendation was accordingly withdrawn.
Resources of the Borough for obtaining the Information
desired respecting ophthalmia neonatorum.
On the 5th July the following report was presented to the Public
Health and Housing Committee:—
"The means at the disposal of the Public Health Department
for discovering the frequency with which cases of ophthalmia
neonatorum occur in the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar are,
under present arrangements, practically nil.
"During the year 1909, 5,035 births occurred in the Borough;
all these, however, were not notified under the Notification of the
Births Act, 1907, and as some considerable proportion of the nonnotified
cases may have consisted of those where neither a registered
medical practitioner nor a certified midwife was in attendance
it would, even if all births notified were visited, constitute a grave
deficiency. To visit these 5,000 infants the Council have one
Health Visitor.
"If the sole duty of the Health Visitor were to visit infants,
one visit to each (the only way in which cases of ophthalmia
neonatorum could be discovered WITHOUT notification) would
necessitate the regular payment of 20 visits per day on every
working day in the year. This might be kept up, but it is
doubtful, as is also the amount of good which this flying visit
would do.
"In addition, however, to visiting infants, the Council's Health
Visitor has to organise work amongst the voluntary workers, and
she acts as organising secretary to the Voluntary Association.
There are some 50 helpers, paying an average of 1,000 visits per
lunar month. Every four weeks notices are sent to these visitors
who return the case papers. Each one has to be read and signed
by the Health Visitor, the number of visits paid to each case