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51
New Maternity and Child Welfare Centre and Day Nursery,
Bessborough Street.
This building, a description of which has been given in previous reports,
was completed during the year and officially opened by Her Majesty the
Queen on the 25th November.
The building serves a dual purpose of a Maternity and Child Welfare
Centre and Day and Night Nursery. The Centre on the ground floor is
under the direct administration of the City Council, whilst the nurseries
on the first and second floors and part of the top floor are administered
by a voluntary association, the City of Westminster Day Nursery Association
as tenants of the City Council. The building is planned on modern
lines, each floor being provided with a spacious balcony facing South, and
is reached by a passenger lift in addition to wide staircases at each end.
Three separate entrances give access to the building. One, leading direct
to the ante-natal waiting room, is reserved for expectant mothers ; the
central doorway forms the main entrance to the Centre, whilst the third
is reserved for the Nursery.
There is accommodation in the Day Nursery for some 80 to 90 children
and some half-dozen children can be accommodated in the night
nursery.
Both these important activities were formerly housed in old and
unsuitable buildings, the Centre at 15, Bessborough Street, and the Nursery
at 147, Warwick Street. The accommodation at the latter was restricted
to forty children.
With the completion of this centre all the City Council's maternity and
child welfare centres are now modern buildings designed for the purpose,
whilst the Westminster Health Society's Centre in Marsham Street is also
similarly designed and of modern construction.
Hospitals.
Municipal.—Particulars of the various hospitals in the City have been
fully outlined in previous reports. One municipal hospital is situated in
the City, viz.:—that in Sheffield Street, controlled by the London County
Council, which has 82 beds, 30 for parturient venereal cases and 52
for ordinary cases suffering from venereal disease.
Voluntary.—There are 12 voluntary hospitals and two military
hospitals in the City.
(7638) D2