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103
these cases home helps have been supplied. Of the remaining
202 cases, of whom 144 were assessed to pay some proportion of
the cost, 69 were cancelled for various reasons. It is evident
therefore that the provision is taken advantage of chiefly in the
poorest homes. Of course it is in the poorest homes that the
services of a home help are most necessary, but there are many
poor homes in which the conditions are unsuitable for a confinement
; and I submit that it is wrong to encourage mothers to be
confined under such conditions. On the other hand the high
assessment encourages mothers in a better financial position, in
whose homes there are suitable accommodation and facilities, to
have their confinements in hospital because it is less expensive.
In this area the services of unofficial home helps can be
obtained for 25s. to 30s. per case (i.e. from 12s. 6d. to 15s. per week).
Some expectant mothers engage such unofficial home helps privately
at 15s. per week, and later make application to my department for
financial assistance. They then discover that if they wish assistance
from the Council, such " assistance " will cost them much more
than 15s. per week. It will therefore be appreciated that the
Council's present scheme is not taken advantage of as it should be
in view of the great disparity between the payment of municipal
and unofficial home helps.
General Observations.
When a home help is put on the Council's approved list she
becomes to all intents and purposes a Council employee, and this
Council is responsible for her conduct. Under the circumstances
it is the duty of your medical and nursing staff to investigate
complaints made either by the mother or the home help. The
frequency with which trifling and pettifogging complaints are made
on both sides testifies to the ingenuity of the human mind, but
your medical and nursing staff have neither the time nor the
training to sift evidence which is so sublimely conflicting and to
compose differences which are so fundamental. An inefficient and
domestically untidy mother often resents the strenuous efforts of a
capable home help in cleansing her home and her children, and is
inclined to regard such efforts as a reflection on her past conduct of
the home. After the home help has completed her service in such
a home the mother may complain for the first time that the home
help must have been "helping herself" to such things as tea,
sugar, bars of soap, or even small sums of money. In my opinion
petty complaints of that kind would not be made if mothers were
allowed to choose their own helps.