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Mrs. Houlder. The Hostel provides seventeen lying-in beds with
cots. The professional staff consists of the Matron, Sister, two
midvvives, and three or four training midwife pupils.
The statistical record of the work of the Hostel is not given for
this year as it was only working for the second six months, and the
numbers were adversely affected by the unfortunate occurrence of an
infective purulent nasal discharge in some of the infants, which
secondarily caused a skin trouble. On two occasions this gave rise to
a great deal of anxiety and trouble, but was eventually suppressed
without any evil results to the children affected. A highly-skilled
specialist was consulted and his opinion confirmed that already held,
viz., that the condition was a post influenzal one.
The Hostel is being conducted this year, 1919, with great successSICK
NURSERY.
At the Borough Centre is maintained a small Infant Sick Nursery.
Six cots are provided, and the children admitted are almost
entirely cases of ailing infants suffering from dietetic or marasmic
conditions The cots have been kept well filled throughout the whole
vear, and the results practically regularly show beneficial changes in
the welfare of the infants admitted.
This Sick Nursery was established some years ago experimentally
and many efforts have been made to obtain larger and better premises,
but so far without success. The circumstances under which this work
is now carried on are now very disadvantageous, in that the room itself
is far from being so light and airy as a sick children's ward should be.
It is also very noisy and the practical difficulties in getting the children
out into the open air in the garden are all but insuperable. It is
urgently necessary to provide a well-equipped up-to-date set of premises
for this section of the infant work.
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METHOD OF FEEDING.
The following are the particulars as to feeding of infants during
the first six months of life of children who survived, and of children
who died between one week and six months old Deaths of
infants under one week have been excluded because it is unlikely that
methods of feeding can have been responsible for a fatal issue in so
short a time.