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During the year, 1,136 student nurses (against 966 in 1955) as well as 54 medical
students, 24 nursery nurses and 19 student district nurses were shown the Council's
health services in the division, and the senior nursing staff of the division gave lectures
and attended discussions in a number of hospitals. These duties, although a substantial
burden on the staff, are recognised as important since they give our colleagues some
knowledge of the working of branches of the health services with which they might
otherwise be unfamiliar.
Problem
families
Monthly divisional case conferences have continued and the division has, with
two other divisions, pioneered a scheme whereby the Divisional Treatment Organiser
has acted as Secretary to the conference and has done necessary following-up in association
with the Divisional Nursing Officer. With the co-operation of various housing
authorities it proved possible to rehouse three families for whom bad housing conditions
were considered to be a major cause of difficulty. Five families in this division were
assisted during the year by home helps specially trained to teach homecraft to problem
families, and at the end of the year seven home helps had been trained under the County
scheme for this purpose. At the end of the year, 149 families were known who presented
special problems of one kind or another.
Home help
service
The three home help service areas were re-organised in June in order to even out,
as far as possible, the number of cases in each area and to improve ease of access by the
public to the area offices. A total of 226 home helps (the equivalent of 158 whole-time
staff) were employed at the end of the year. During the year home help service was
provided in 2,025 households because of the needs of aged and chronic sick persons,
out of a total of 2,734 households attended, so that the aged and chronic sick accounted
for 74.1 per cent. of the total number. Maternity cases represented 4.3 per cent., tuberculosis
cases 2.9 per cent. and other cases 18.7 per cent. of the total. At the end of the
year the number of persons receiving home-help was 1,215 compared with 1,163 a
year earlier.
Chiropody
Foot clinics for old age pensioners who are not home-bound have been started by
the Islington Old People's Welfare Council and six sessions a week are now provided
in this way. Foot treatment at home has been provided under the auspices of the North
London District Nursing Association (who maintain a voluntary fund for this purpose)
for a number of home-bound elderly people nominated by the health visitors. The
Council's own foot clinic arrangements were altered at the beginning of December
so that Islington residents could have the benefit of eight sessions a week at the East
Islington Welfare Centre in Drayton Park, thus saving the journey to the Finsbury
health centre, where chiropody was previously concentrated. The total number of
sessions provided weekly in the Division remained unchanged however. Attendances
at the Council's foot clinics during the year numbered 25,035 against 25,551 in 1955.
Care of
mothers and
young
children
Fifteen welfare centres and branch centres (including those run by voluntary organisations)
were in operation throughout the year, but two branch centres in unsatisfactory
premises in church halls were rehoused in better premises near their former sites.
Health educational sessions have once more been an important feature of the work of
the welfare centres, and the 793 sessions were attended by 7,248 mothers during 1956.
Group education does not, however, replace the need for teaching individuals and
much of this must be done as well. 55.4 per cent. of expectant mothers attended the
Council's ante-natal clinics, and post-natal attendances were also higher than in the past.
First attendances of children under one year of age at infant welfare sessions represented
89.2 per cent. of the five births for the year (1955 figure 84 per cent.) and attendances
at special toddlers' clinics were well maintained. Attendances at the occasional creches
attached to certain welfare centres have been disappointingly low. A welcome increase
in the dental work for expectant and nursing mothers and young children was due to
special efforts made to follow-up unkept appointments.
Day nurseries
Seven Council day nurseries and one grant-aided voluntary nursery functioned in
1956. The average percentage occupation through the year was 73.7 but comparison
136