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Becontree Estate, but your plans for a permanent clinic in the Porters
Avenue area were thwarted by the onset of war. At the end of hostilities
Central Clinic remain unscathed, but Woodward Clinic had been
severely damaged by enemy action and a civil defence building had
been grafted on to the remaining fabric of the original building. Of
the other first aid civil defence posts built in the town, the one at Upney
Hospital and the one in Porters Avenue were earmarked for incorporation
in the post-war clinic service of the town, but only as a short
term policy. The Porters Avenue premises were eventually adapted
for clinic premises according to the plans of the Borough Architect
and despite the limitations imposed by the substantial fabric a well
planned clinic building has been created, which will serve the area for
some years to come.
The orthopaedic and physiotherapy service had become very
cramped in its home at Faircross School, and was re-housed in classrooms
at lie Manor School. It is now hoped that this clinic, which
provides all the facilities to be found in the out-patient department
of a first lass hospital, will soon be transferred to more suitable
accommodation in the Barking Hospital.
The enormous growth of the dental service made it necessary to
multiply the number of surgeries available and centres were opened
up at the Bifrons and Manor Schools, whilst a dental laboratory was
set up to lanufacture dentures and the appliances necessary for
orthodontic treatment.
The Commencement of the war had seen the virile growth of new
services. For a number of years clinic services in the town had been
accepted as an essential part of the provision for patients coming
within the school health and the maternity and child welfare schemes,
but their facilities were still denied to patients outside these two
categories. A foot clinic had been started in 1938, and dental services
were next made available to adults. In the policy of bringing services
to the people's doorstep, the consultant specialist schemes were next
expanded to include all Barking residents who became entitled to attend
Consultant skin, Orthopaedic, Ophthalmic and Ear, Nose and Throat
clinics. Moreover, every effort was made to ensure that where obligatory
the smallest possible charge was made to the public using such services.
Neither must it be forgotten that for 11 years prior to the introduction
of the new Health Service you had been operating a scheme
whereby mothers and children attending your clinics could be given
Prescriptions for medicines which were dispensed free to the patient
by arrangement with local chemists—a power which has now been lost.
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