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28
This type of isolation block requires a plot of land some 130
feet square.
The cost of the block was £7,634, and of the furnishings
£921—£8,555 in all. The Nurses' Home and other extensions,
including the making of roads, the laying out of the grounds and
furniture, cost altogether £15,273.
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
Beport by Dr. Jessie Muir, Assistant Medical Officer of
Health:—
"The infantile mortality rate for 1927 was 38.3—the lowest
ever recorded for the Borough. The figures for England and
Wales, for London and for the 107 Great Towns were respectively
69, 59 and 71. Never before has the rate for Hornsey fallen
below 41. Of the 46 infant deaths, details of which will be
found in Table C. on page 37, no fewer than 33 were of infants
under the age of four weeks, and of these neo-natal deaths,
as they are called, 21 were attributable to premature birth.
This has for some years been the chief cause of death among
infants in Hornsey and, so far as is known at present, the only
means of prevention is for the expectant mother to receive adequate
medical supervision during her period of pregnancy. The
lack of care in the case of illegitimate infants is shown by their
appalling mortality—of 48 illegitimate infants born in Hornsey
during 1927 no fewer than 9 died before reaching the age of one
year.
Three mothers died as a result of their confinements—one
from sepsis and two from other causes. The maternal mortality
rate was thus 2.49 per 1,000 births. All these deaths occurred
in institutions, and none attended the ante-natal consultations.
The arrangement made by the Town Council for the provision
of the services of consultants in cases of puerperal fever
and puerperal pyrexia has proved helpful to medical practitioners
during the past year. Fourteen notifications of puerperal pyrexia
were received and a consultant was called in on six occasions.
In no instance was it found necessary to make special bacteriological
examinations, to admit the patient to hospital or to
provide a visiting nurse.