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68
The Cleansing of Persons Act, 1897, empowers the Borough Council to expend
money in providing a cleansing station. The General Powers Act, 1904,
enables the Borough Council to deal with the homes. The General Powers Act,
1907, confers compulsory powers on the County Council for the removal of
verminous school children and verminous inmates of common lodging houses
to cleansing stations. The Children Act, 1908, enlarges the powers with
regard to school children, and compels the Borough Council to permit the use
of their cleansing station by the local education authority for the cleansing of
school children upon an agreed payment.
Negotiations were continued with the London County Council (Education
Department) with regard to the possibility of the Borough Council arranging
definitely to bath verminous children at a fixed charge per head, in accordance
with the provisions of Section 122, Sub section (3) of the Children Act, 1908,
above mentioned.
A letter was received from the Education Department of the County Council
stating that the Council's Committee were still of opinion that the interval of
three days between the dates of cleansing proposed by the Borough Council
was insufficient to enable the nurses to certify whether or not the cleansing
had been effected, and regretting that they were, therefore, unable to vary the
terms of the draft agreement.
The importance of the three days interval is vital, as unless it is insisted
upon the cleansing of the children will be indefinitely prolonged, with the
added risk of infecting other children ; and, further, the loss of the prospect
of diminishing and stamping out the amount of vermin prevalent, and of
reducing the expenditure upon the freeing of children from vermin, will
follow.
Your Public Health Committee considered that the views of this Authority
in the matter should be personally placed before the County Council's
Committee, and, therefore resolved, on the 10th May, 1911, that the Committee
of the County Council dealing with the matter he asked to receive a Deputation
consisting of Councillors C. Williams, G. Blount and C. A. Coggan, and the
Medical Officer of Health.
A communication was then received stating that the County Council's Subcommittee,
before whom the Deputation appeared, could not see their way to
recommend the County Council to accede to this Authority's request that an
interval of not more than three days should be allowed to elapse between each
cleansing of a particular child, but that they would endeavour, as far as possible,
to meet the points raised by the Deputation. Also, that they had under consideration
a proposal to increase the existing staff of School Nurses in order to
cope with the work involved in their comprehensive scheme for the cleansing of
verminous school children, and that it was proposed that when the additional
staff was appointed, one Nurse shall be allocated to each Cleansing Station to
insure that systematic arrangements were made for the attendance of school
children thereat.
It was further stated in the communication that if, in the operation of this
scheme, it was found possible to send children at intervals of three days they