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Details of the service provided is shown by the following figures:
1958/9 1959/60 1960/1 1961/2 1962/3
Meals served 167,134 172,637 180,291 196,695 202,430
Welfare Committee establishments
Medical supervision of homes under the control of the Welfare Committee was continued.
These homes include large and small homes for the aged and infirm, accommodation for
mothers and babies, homeless families units, homes for the blind and lodging houses.
There are units for lone women with a new-born baby in two of the large welfare homes,
where mothers may be resident for periods up to three months. One unit provides accommodation
for 18 mothers and 18 babies. The second unit originally provided places for
12 mothers and 12 babies but, due to a rise in demand, this had temporarily to be increased
to 32 mothers and 34 babies by taking over accommodation which previously had been
used for homeless families or old people. This accommodation was only made available
to meet an emergency and the unit has now been reduced to 14 mothers and 14 babies in
the original unit. Carisbrooke House is a mother-and-baby home for single girls, who are
admitted for six weeks before and six to eight weeks after delivery. The Welfare Committee
also have a hostel for mothers-in-work with a baby. Mothers are admitted when the baby
is six weeks old and may stay until the baby reaches the age of eighteen months. In spite
of the temporary reallocations of accommodation referred to above, outbreaks of infectious
disease have not been a special problem in these homes.
Although the two homeless families units at Norwood House closed early in January 1962
and the unit at Hillside was also closed for several months during the year, the number of
homeless families received by the Welfare department remained high. The Public Health
department advised on the steps to be taken to limit the spread of infectious disease,
particularly Sonne dysentery and gastro-enteritis due to E. Coli. In this connection the
Bacteriological Laboratory of the Public Health Laboratory Service at County Hall did
invaluable work in examining the several thousands of rectal swabs collected during the
year from residents admitted to the homeless families units. It is doubtful whether there
has ever been any establishment, anywhere, where the laboratory has been used more
intensely and for such a prolonged period in the search for potential spreaders of infection
than in the homeless families units of the Council. All new admissions were vetted, those
being transferred elsewhere were also tested; whenever there was a higher prevalence of
bowel infection than usual widespread surveys were carried out. During the year 1,035
cases of bowel infections, which included a large proportion of symptomless carriers, and
360 cases of measles had to be removed to hospital from homeless families units. A further
430 cases (pneumonia, tonsillitis, acute appendicitis, etc.) were also transferred to hospital.
The features which are of special importance in the spread of infection in these units
are:
(a) periodical overcrowding—it is notorious that the incidence of dysentery is highest
when the occupation figures are highest;
(b) the very close and intimate nature of contact between children for a large part of
the time they are in the unit;
(c) common feeding accommodation;
(d) shared sanitary accommodation.
Much has been done to stimulate the women inhabitants to a sense of responsibility
for the maintenance of sanitary accommodation in good order, but responsibility of this
type is patchy in distribution. It is regrettable that from the point of view of infection
everyone is at the mercy of those with the lowest standards of responsibility, and there are
a small number in the units at most times with very low standards of hygiene indeed.
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