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11
Domestic Help.
Six domestic helps were in constant employment throughout
the year, the number of homes in which assistance was provided
being 105.
Day Nurseries.
The two Day Nurseries, St. Michael's and White Hart Lane
have been filled to capacity throughout the year, apart from periods
of quarantine due to outbreaks of measles and chickenpox. The
average attendance at St. Michael's for the whole year was 27, and
at White Hart Lane 40. The demand for admission of children
to the nurseries remains as great as ever, and the waiting lists are
very long. A formal request has been made by the St. Michael's
Church Council for the return of the St. Michael's Nursery premises
to its former use as an Infants' School, and if this is acceded to,
steps must be taken to find other premises for use as a Day Nursery.
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE SERVICE IN WOOD
GREEN.
With the coming into force of the National Health Service
Act, 1946, on July 5th, 1948, the personal medical services such as
Maternity and Child Welfare, are no longer the responsibility of
county districts like Wood Green, but pass into the control of
larger health authorities, counties and county boroughs. This is
therefore the last annual report in which I shall be reporting on a
full year's work of the maternity and child welfare services provided
by the Borough of Wood Green, and it may be of interest
to the members of the Council to give a short resume of the development
of these services.
The first evidence of the Council's official interest in child
welfare work in Wood Green was the appointment in December,
1907, of a lady health visitor for an initial period of three months.
During the previous year there had been no fewer than 43 deaths
of infants under one year from infantile diarrhoea, and it was
apparently felt that the appointment of someone to advise the
mothers on the feeding and general care of their babies might be
of value in reducing the very high infantile mortality rate, which