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(b) Maternity and Nursing Homes.—During the year it has been necessary to use
the increased accommodation you provided in the Upney Hospital for maternity cases
in December, 1932.
There is one house in Barking used as a nursing home. During the year 1933,
14 births have been notified from this address.
(c) Consultations in Obstetrics and Gynecology.—An important development during
the year in the midwifery and maternity services maintained by the Corporation is the
appointment of Mr. Alan Brews as Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist.
Mr. Brews attends ten times during the year to hold consultative out-patient departments,
to which patients are referred by the medical practitioners in the area,
including your own officers.
Mr. Brews also undertakes all consultation work, etc., in connection with cases
of puerperal fever and puerperal pyrexia, and in addition may be consulted by medical
practitioners in cases of abnormal or difficult labour.
(d) Health Visitors.—During the year your health visiting staff has been increased
in that part of Barking east of Lodge Avenue, generally known as the Becontree Estate.
On this Estate the work of health visitor and school nurse is combined, and, whereas
to begin with there were only two such visitors covering the area, towards the end of
1933 two further visitors were appointed.
(e) Infant Life Protection (under Part I of the Children Act, 1908, as amended by
the Children and Young Persons Act, 1932).—Work under the Children Act, 1908, has
been progressing steadily in Barking these several years, and the Act of 1932 has still
further strengthened your powers for the protection of these children.
We received from the Town Clerk a synopsis of the new Act, setting out our
obligations, and these we have discharged.
Month by month I have called your notice to such irregularities which have arisen
with reference to notification by foster-parents, and I am wondering if and whether
a regulation could be enforced insisting that, where a foster-child is handed over from
one foster-parent to another or is handed over to anybody who may reasonably be