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Severe cases of illness are referred to the family doctor, except in urgent
instances where they may have to be sent to hospital direct.
In necessitous cases and where the illness is not severe, prescriptions for
necessary medicines can be supplied at the infant welfare clinics. This widens the
scope of these clinics considerably.
All mothers attending the infant welfare clinics can obtain supplies of dried
milk and tonics at cost price, or in necessitous cases at half price or free of charge.
Children with postural defects, dental caries, visual defects or debility,
necessitating ultra-violet light treatment, are referred by the medical officer to the
appropriate clinic for treatment.
Mothers too, with children under 2 years of age, are able to have dental
treatment, ophthalmic treatment, including prescription for spectacles, radiant
heat treatment, etc., and a greater number of mothers have taken advantage of
these services than heretofore.
More and more you are achieving co-ordination in your medical services, and
there are scarcely any watertight compartments left, which is of course a good
thing.
As a single illustration, I may perhaps be permitted to draw a picture of your
eye service, at any one of which sessions it might be possible to find expectant
mothers, nursing mothers, toddlers, elementary school children, children from the
Abbey School and the South-East Essex Technical College, candidates to be
appointed to designated posts and other employees of the Council on whom it has
been found necessary, under some special circumstances, to present a report upon
their eyes. It is not suggested, of course, that representatives of all these types
arrive at every clinic, but they do come up from time to time, and they are not
only examined but also receive treatment where necessary, and this treatment
includes everything which can be and which is undertaken at the out-patient department
of any hospital especially devoted to eye cases.
What may be said of the ophthalmic work in Barking may be said also of all
the other departments which cater for all those people who have a claim upon your
services. In the massage department for instance, women come up post-natally
for abdominal muscle massage, where it is considered necessary by Mr. J. V.
O'Sullivan, by Dr. Bampfylde-Wells, or by one of your other medical officers.