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THE HEALTH OF BARKING
and welfare services, particularly through the health visitor, who connects the two
services with the home.
The primary duty of the nurseries is the care of infants and young children while
their mothers are at work. The majority of these mothers go out to work because
they have to and not only to help the national effort. Housing is difficult and
conditions make it impossible for mothers who would, under more normal
conditions, be able to care for their own children.
Where social and home conditions are difficult, it is often essential for the children
to attend a nursery while their mothers work to supplement their income, unless, of
course, the children are to be adopted or cared for by foster mothers. A day
nursery is greatly to be preferred to complete separation from the mother.
There are many children admitted to the nurseries on medical advice. A child
that is backward may improve rapidly under expert attention and by mixing with
little people in their own familiar world. There are babies who come because of
feeding difficulties—a few weeks of carefully measured feeds, given at regular
times, and they soon grow into happy, normal healthy babies.
The regular routine life of a nursery makes for contented children. The
Toddlers, aged 3 to 5 years, under the care of a trained warden, assisted by nursery
nurses and students, teach simple methods of hygiene, which includes washing
hands before meals, cleaning teeth and regular nose drill. The care of heads is
important too in a mixed community. They also have set times for organised and
free play. All these things, plus the friendly relationship between mother and
nursery, tend to give a child an added feeling of security and love. Tweenies, aged
2 to 3 years, and Babies, under 2 years, have their own routine and attention,
their own rooms, bathrooms, toys, etc., and the daily guidance of a helping nurse.
But an important duty of a nursery and one of the most important is very
often overlooked. The training of girls in nursery work is a great social asset to the
community. These girls are not trained just to fill staff vacancies in nurseries,
they are trained in housework, cooking, needlework and the care of young children,
to become good wives and mothers. When all girls are encouraged to take a training
of this type, whether the course be short or long, then much neglect and unhappiness
fostered by ignorance, will not exist. When this is accomplished nurseries will only
be required for one purpose, to make a happy playground for babies and toddlers
while tired and harassed mothers have a few hours of well earned rest.
Orthopaedic Service.
If a person is so unlucky as to develop acute appendicitis, then the offending
organ will be deftly removed and recovery will usually follow uneventfully. But
if he suffers from one of those crippling troubles of the joints or muscles which send
him to an orthopaedic surgeon the case is very different.
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