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53
1 beg to recommend, therefore, that arrangements be made with the
Croydon Nursing Service for the home nursing of cases of the following
diseases directly referred to the Nursing Service by the Medical Officer of
Health :—
(a) Measles Where the child is suffering from a grave or
(b) Whooping rough complicated attack in unsuitable surroundings
with inadequate home care.
(c) Puerperal fever, where the nursing arrangements are otherwise
inadequate, and where is proves undesirable to remove the patient to
the Borough Hospital or other hospital.
(d) Epidemic diarrhæa, where nursing arrangements are inadequate,
and where it is undesirable, owing to the acuteness of the condition, to
move the child to the Borough Hospital or elsewhere.
(e) Infantile paralysis, in which disease early and efficient nursing
may go far to save a limb which would otherwise be completely paralysed
and useless.
(/) Ophthalmia neonatorum, in which neglect may be followed by
permanent blindness, with a resulting charge on public and on private
funds; nursing to be provided in cases where the nursing arrangements
are inadequate, and where the patient and the mother cannot conveniently
be moved to the Borough Hospital.
In all the above conditions, home nursing would be of the nature of a
very profitable investment to the local authority. It is not proposed that the
Council should undertake responsibility for the many cases of some of these
diseases already being nursed by the Croydon Nursing Service at the instance
of parents, medical practitioners, and others; but that provision should in
this way be made for the needy and neglected cases which would otherwise
be overlooked, and which would run the risk of physical damage. The provision
of home nursing on those lines is approved by the Ministry of Health,
and one-half of the expenditure is refunded. The estimate of the cost given
below cannot at present be more than a "token" figure; it is based on an
assumed fee not exceeding 1s. 4d. per visit by the nurse, this being understood
to be the sum at present paid by Approved Societies for nursing services *
D.—Financial.
The following is an estimate of the cost for the first year of the several
recommendations made above; the items are set out in the order in which
they appear in the report. The recommendations are in all cases subject
to the approval of the Ministry of Health :—
Reference
page. £
4. Leaflets, midwives 5
4. Ante-natal registers 5
4. Maternity outfits 60
5. Leaflets, medical practitioners 5
5. Additional subsidy, St. Mary's Hostel, for,
say, 13 additional beds say £1,500*
8. Treatment of, say, 20 children with
mus, etc., at Borough Hospital (8 weeks
each) 480
9. Booklets, mothers 25
9. Home nursing, say up to 200 patients at
10 visits each140
£720, excluding subsidy
to St.
Mary's Hostel*
*This scale of payment was subsequently adopted, by agreement with the
Croydon Nursing Service.