London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Ealing 1918

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Ealing]

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31
be available for expectant and nursing mothers and their children
under five years. When the new School Clinic is completed it
will be possible to arrange for cases from the Maternity and Child
Welfare Centre being treated there. The Board's grant is available
for this treatment, and it is stated that a charge should ordinarily
be made for new dentures for women and for spectacles
for children, but the Board are willing that the charge should be
reduced below the cost price or remitted entirely where the circumstances
of the woman or of the child's parents are such as to
justify this course.
I would suggest that arrangements be made later for treatment
as suggested by the Board.
Instruction in Hygiene.
The Board state that the extension of the grant to this purpose
has been made in order to make it available in aid of reasonable
expenditure on literature, exhibitions, and on collective
instruction to expectant and nursing mothers, and also to voluntary
and salaried workers where the Medical Officer considers
that the instruction is likely to improve their competency to undertake
the Maternity and Child Welfare work assigned to them.
The expenses of salaried workers engaged in such work may be
included in the application for grant under this heading.
Provision for Confinements.
The Council has already made provision for the care of abnormal
confinements in an institution, Dr. Bell's Home at Old Court,
Hanger Hill. There is also need to provide for normal cases which
cannot, through unusual circumstances, be dealt with at their
own homes. During the last six months, although the necessity
did not arise for the admission to hospital of any abnormal or
complicated confinements, the necessity did arise with regard
to three normal cases, one of which was ultimately admitted to
a hospital in London, the other two to the Infirmary at Isleworth.
A normal case may require institutional care for three main reasons,
firstly, where there is insufficient accommodation at home ; secondly,
where the condition of the home is likely to endanger the health