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direction and our Infantile Mortality rate has remained consistently
low.
During the course of the year, in applying scales for the granting
of help, the Council determined to take into consideration the
unborn child, realising that care of an infant must begin before it is
actually born. As a result of this, many mothers were enabled to
obtain treatment for their teeth before their children were born,
instead of waiting until the additional member of the family brought
them within the scale.
The demand for Home Helps after a confinement has continued
throughout the year, and dental treatment has been sought and
appreciated.
During the latter months of the year the work of building three
new Maternity and Child Welfare Centres was commenced, and
before this Report is circulated they will have been opened and be
in use. They should ultimately be the nucleus of a Health Service
in each part of the District; not a service to cure disease, but one
to prevent it. Enfield will probably be the first District to have
opened three new Maternity and Child Welfare Clinics on one day,
and I am hopeful that the occasion will mark a new era in the
prevention of disease within the District and that there will be
created throughout Enfield a health-conscientiousness and a determination
to prevent disease, or at least control it in its earliest
stages.
During the course of the year 11 houses were demolished.
In 1933 the Council adopted as its 5 year programme the demolition
of 63 houses. By the end of 1934, 56 houses had been demolished
and arrangements completed for the demolition of 17 more. It
will be seen that the Council has not only completed its 5 year
programme in two years, but exceeded this programme; furthermore,
I represented to the Council three areas comprising 45 houses
as Clearance Areas. These areas are at present under consideration
by the Council.
In order to obtain even further improvement in the condition
of the dwelling-houses in the District, the Department commenced
using Section 17 of the Housing Act, 1930, instead of dealing with
most of the defects found, under the Public Health Acts. Under
previous procedure, it was only possible to abate those nuisances
that were, more or less, specifically stated in the Act. According
to Section 17 of the Housing Act, 1930, it is possible to get remedied
any defect which renders a house in any way unfit for human
habitation.
It has been with the greatest pleasure that I have noted the