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Province of
Natal centre
On 26th May, 1955, the Province of Natal centre (formally known as the Model
Welfare centre) was officially opened by His Excellency the High Commissioner for
the Union of South Africa. It was taken into use on 30th May for the provision of a
wide range of maternity and child welfare and school health services, including infant
welfare, ante- and post-natal, child guidance for children under five, family planning,
dental services, orthodontics, teaching of young deaf children, audiology and audiometry,
nutrition, special investigation and minor ailment clinics. Attendances have been
reasonably satisfactory, but the many new services are still being built up. The centre
serves primarily residents in Holborn and South St. Pancras, but at some special clinics
patients from anywhere within the County are treated.
This centre represents a unique partnership between the Institute of Child Health
of the University of London and the Council in its capacities as local health and local
education authority. The cost of the site, the building and its initial equipment has been
met out of money given during the war by the people of Natal to the South African
Gift to Britain scheme, supplemented (for the purposes of building the Institute's
reference library and laboratory on the upper floors) by the University Grants Committee.
Repairs and replacements so far as the Council's services are concerned will
be primarily the Council's responsibility. The administration of the centre is undertaken
by a House Committee which includes representatives of the Institute of Child Health,
the Council's Health Committee, the Divisional Health Committees for divisions
2 and 3 and Borough Councils. The superintendent is a member of the Council's staff
and day-to-day problems are dealt with effectively by close liaison between the secretary
of the Institute, the superintendent of the centre, and the divisional health office.
Financial responsibility is shared on the broad basis that the Council contributes 90 per
cent. of the cost incurred in providing the maternity and child welfare and school
health services. The two-fold object of the centre, as Professor Alan Moncrieff pointed
out in his address on the occasion of the opening ceremony, is to give a model service
to the children of this part of London whilst bearing in mind the University functions
of teaching and research. Its physical proximity to and professional ties with the
Hospital for Sick Children should guarantee the fulfilment of the hopes placed in it.
Special
curveys
Two new special surveys were instituted in 1955, both concerning cerebral palsy.
One was essentially statistical in nature, designed to ascertain the number of such
children in the division, the extent and type of disability and the treatment (if any)
received. It has involved close co-operation with the Part II and Part IV services. The
other survey was sponsored by the Medical Research Council and was concerned with
the early detection of infantile cerebral palsy and the development of new methods of
examination from a study of infantile reflexes. Both surveys, whilst undertaken cheerfully
and willingly, have of necessity placed yet a further burden on the field workers
and divisional office staff.
Welfare foods
The distribution of national welfare foods from the welfare centres is now an
established divisional activity and is functioning very smoothly. The number of distribution
points remains at 15, but sessions at some have been slightly reduced. In the light
of the publicity given in the summer of 1955 to the national trend towards declining
sales of these commodities, the following distribution figures for division 3 are of
interest :
6 months
ended
National
Dried
Milk
Cod Liver
Oil
Vitamin
A&D
tablets
Orange
Juice
1 Jan. 1955
2 July, 1955
31 Dec., 1955
77,392
71,600
71,565
16,749
16,870
17,345
5,589
6,278
6,735
98,242
103,760
117,178
The fall in sales of National Dried Milk is almost certainly caused by the preference
of many mothers for branded goods.
The nine day nurseries and one grant-aided voluntary day nursery were in operation Day
until the end of the year, when two in requisitioned premises (King Square and Plimsoll nursenes
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