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40
The consultant services of the Specialist, Mr. Bright
Banister, are available in cases of doubt, or where the cause
of pyrexia is not of a minor character. During 1936 his
services were required on two occasions.
Post-Natal Service.
Health Visitors—Home Visiting.
The Local Authority has a Nursing Staff comprising
six full-time Health Visitors, who divide their time equally
between the Maternity and Child Welfare and School
Medical Services. One Health Visitor attends the
Tuberculosis Dispensary once a week.
The Health Visitors are all general trained hospital
nurses who also possess the special certificates required by
the State for the practice of midwifery and health visiting.
Each Health Visitor on the staff took a course of
training during 1936 in First Aid in Chemical Warfare
and obtained by examination the certificate granted by
the British Red Cross Society.
The importance of home visiting cannot be over
emphasised, for when the midwife has concluded her duties
after a confinement the young mother may then have the
benefit of professional advice in the principles of babycraft.
Home visitation has an advantage over Welfare Centres
in the fact that the visitor sees the existing conditions in
the home and is able to advise accordingly.
Table XII. in the Appendix sets out in detail the
statistics of home visitation in the six areas of the Borough
allotted to the Health Visitors. The aggregate total of
home visits for 1936 was 8,654. This figure includes
1,290 "ineffectual" visits, such as where the family is
found to have removed, where no answer is received or
where visits meet with no appreciation. These visits play
no useful part in child welfare work, and therefore it has
been our practice to record them apart from the general
statistics relating to mothercraft and babycraft.
Table XII. discloses a decrease of 888 effective visits
for the year 1936 as compared with 1935. This unfortunately
was inevitable having regard to the increased duties