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16
Public Offices,
Enfield.
23rd June, 1942.
To the Chairman and Members of the Urban District Council
of Enfield.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to place before you my Annual Report on the Maternity,
Child Welfare, and Midwifery work carried out in Enfield during
the year 1941.
The care of the expectant and nursing mother, of the young
child, and the provision of a suitable and composite Midwifery
Service during wartime is no easy task, for shortage of staff, both
technical and clerical, and restriction of food supplies make improvisations
continually necessary. All the more I am pleased
to inform the Council that the infant mortality rate for 1941 was
38.12. This figure was bettered only in 1939 when it was 35.07,
the lowest ever recorded in Enfield. It compares more than favourably
with the rest of England for which the Infant Mortality rate
was 59.00. Whilst, admittedly, statistics can give a false impression,
this figure is one on which the Council can rely as an
indication of the efficiency of its general health services.
The number of confinements in the district was less than in
the previous yerr by over 100 but it has surprisingly increased
during the early months of 1942 and has created many staff problems
at a time when midwives are extremely difficult to obtain.
During 1941 it will be seen that no less than 12,536 visits
were paid by Health Visitors to homes in Enfield where children
under 5 years of age were living.
With the growth of clinics, including special sessions for special
services, one ter.ds to forget that the primary duty cf a Health
Visitor is to visit homes, to see babies in the surroundings in which
they spend the major ptrt of their lives, and to advise mothers
how best to look after them in these surroundings and improve
them where possible.
It is difficult to exaggerate the value of a good home life, and
no factor is more deplorable than the disruption which the war
has caused in our homes, and the separations it has entailed. In
this lies one of the curses of war, the evil consequences of which
it is very difficult to overstate.
The large number of visits paid by Health Visitors in the
homes is a realisation of the benefits they can secure, and I believe