View report page

19
A Medical Officer for ante-natal work.
Three Health Visitors.
Municipal Midwife.
A Staff of Voluntary Workers, of which the nucleus is the
women appointed to the Town Council's Statutory Committee for
Maternity and Child Welfare.
Areas.
For the purpose of this work the Borough of Hornsey is
mapped out into three distinct areas, and for the visiting in each
area one Health Visitor is responsible. The notifications of births
in each area are sent from the Town Hall direct to the Health
Visitor responsible for that area. Visits are made to the mother
within ten days of the birth of the child. Advice is given if
asked for, and the parents are told of the available assistance at
their disposal at any time in the future and of the method of
obtaining at any time that assistance.
Method of Work.
There are two Centres in the Borough to which the mothers
may bring their children for advice. At No. 1 Centre, which
includes two visiting areas, the Medical Officer for Maternity
and Child Welfare holds, during the week, four consultations,
and at No. 2 Centre two consultations, at each of which she
sees on an average 24 infants and children.
The object at these consultations is not to treat minor
ailments, but to prevent them and to improve the standard of
health.
The cases dealt with fall mainly under the following
headings:—
1. Education, in tne normal feeding of the normal child.
2. Difficulties in breast feeding and failing lactation.
3. Abnormalities in nutrition and metabolic deviations.
4. Incorrect feeding.
5. Detection of congenital abnormalities.
6. Diagnosis in their earliest stages of systemic infection,
e.g., tuberculosis, rheumatism.
A certain amount of time is given to each case to the
education of the mother in. the recognition of the normal, and
in feeding and hygiene; her own child being used as the clinical
material and the point upon which she is anxious is used as