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279
Annual Report of Miss Hall, Health Visitor.
Public Health Offices,
Bow Road, E.
January 4th, 1915.
Sir,—
I beg to present the seventh Annual Report of my work.
As this will be the last report under the old scheme of working (the extended
Maternity and Child Welfare scheme of the Local Government Board
coming into full operation this month), I thought it would be interesting
to give a short resume of the work accomplished during the seven years
since my appointment, together with a comparison of the rates of Infantile
Mortailty for the seven years, 1901-1907 and 1908-14 (inclusive), especially
as extravagant statements have been made in the Press regarding
the conditions of infant life in the Borough, and no doubt equally
extravagant claims will be made regarding the improvement. It will
certainly be interesting to note whether the ratio of improvement (when
shown in cold facts and figures) during the next seven years, will warrant
the enormously increased expenditure in the Borough, supposing of course,
that the present rate of expenditure by the various Societies working
in the Borough, is kept up.
Poplar Infant Care Association.
*This Association, under its old name of The Poplar Health Visiting
Association, was organised and founded entirely by this department in
1908, in accordance with the expressed wish of the Council (and under the
recognition of the Local Government Board), that work should beorganised
amongst voluntary workers, when the Notification of Births Act came into
operation and I was appointed as Health Visitor by the Council. The
number of visits paid by the voluntary workers increased from 2,308
during 1908 to 9,771 for the six months ended June 30th, 1912, when
*The following is an extract from my first Monthly Report to the
Council, under date 1st June, 1908:—
Public Health Offices,
Bow Road,
June 1st, 1908.
Gentlemen,—
I beg to submit to you my first monthly report. I commenced my duties
on May 4th, and have visited some few infants, but the greater part of my
time has been occupied in trying to arouse the interest of the inhabitants
in the formation of a Voluntary Helpers' Association. To aid in this, the
Medical Officer of Health had the following notice typed:—