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THE HEALTH OF BARKING
What I have to say about slippers could also be said about other things, and
not only about father and mother, but about Tommy too. For women to go
shopping in flexible sandals is bad, and it is equally bad for children to go running
about all day in flexible sandals.
Some "bright young things" go about in such sandals, and I am to advise you
that the constant wearing of such footgear can only result in deformed feet.
Dental Service.
Although 1947 did not mark your final achievement in dental services, it
did show a definite forward step in this direction. By the end of the year you
had increased your dental staff to five full-time dental surgeons ably assisted by five
dental nurses. The number of clinics was increased to five, with the opening
first of Porters Avenue Dental Clinic, and then later of Woodward Road Clinic.
Further schemes for the doubling of Porters Avenue Clinic and for the reopening
of East Street Clinic as a double dental unit were also put forward
and the preliminaries dealt with.
In common practice with most other authorities you operated your dental
scheme for expectant and nursing mothers and you went further than such other
authorities by including in your scheme mothers of children up to five years of
age ; you also fulfilled your obligations in the treatment of toddlers or children of
under school age.
Further to your Maternity and Child Welfare dental scheme you have
operated your Public Scheme which from a comparatively small beginning during
the war years has become one of the largest of such schemes in the country. You
are, therefore, one of the pioneers of a future National Dental Service.
One of the dental tragedies of the old school dental service as such was the lapse
of continuity of treatment after the child left school. So much good work done by
the school dentists was wasted, in that, once the child had left school, until such time
as he or she qualified for treatment under the National Health Insurance, any
treatment had to be paid for by the adolescent or the parent.
You encouraged your adolescent by making only a nominal charge per annum
for such treatment as might be necessary, and then under your public scheme a
definite continuity of treatment was possible. Thus the general population of
Barking can be said to be more dentally minded than the average citizen.
At the same time it should be pointed out that there are far too many dentures
being made, especially for comparatively young people, which stresses the need for
such an increase in dental staff and dental education that far more conservative
dental treatment can be carried out.
Although statistics are no guide to the quality of work being carried out, the
figures given in Appendix B, Table XIV, do indicate the amount of work which is
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