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27
The number of out-workers reported was 2,527, and of these some 1,834 were
residents in Shoreditch. These figures are below the average for the past five years,
but they show an increase as compared with those for 1926.
As pointed out in previous reports, in numerous instances names and addresses
of the workers are duplicated owing to lists being sent in twice a year, and in some
cases the same out-workers are employed by more than one firm, so that the numbers
given above must not be taken as representing the actual numbers of individual
out-workers. Tables are appended showing the distribution of out-workers as
regards trades in the Borough. Most of them are engaged in work connected with the
making of wearing apparel, artificial flowers, paper bags and boxes, umbrellas, toys
and crackers.
Some 774 visits of inspection were made to places where home-work was being
carried on, and in connection with these 88 sanitary notices were served. The
cases of notifiable infectious disease occurring at out-workers' premises numbered 17
and included 5 of scarlet fever, 8 diphtheria and 4 pneumonia. The usual steps
were taken in connection with them by the officers of the sanitary authority.
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
The births notified numbered 1,802 and there were in addition some 73 still
births. Of the notifications 1,259 were received from registered midwives practising
in the Borough. In addition, 201 births occurring in institutions outside Shoreditch
were notified weekly, on forms sent in by the London County Council. Including
there the live births notified during the year were approximately 95 per cent, of the
births registered during the year as compared with 96 per cent, in 1926, 94 in 1925,
98 in 1924, 88 in 1923, 88 in 1922, 98 in 1921, 85 in 1920 and 95 in 1919.
A summary of the work of doctors and health visitors is appended (pp. 66-71).
It follows generally on the lines of previous years.
The work has been carried on as in previous years with the addition of a morning
Toddlers' Clinic by Dr. Sylvia Smith. This was opened on Tuesday morning 1st
February and was transferred to Wednesday morning in August and the opening in
November of a new Infant Welfare Consultation at Hoxton Market Mission on Wednesday
afternoon. In this clinic, which is taken by Dr. Edna Goffe, mothers resident
in Health Visitors districts Nos. 5 and 6 are invited to take their babies.
The total number of attendances at the various centres during the year was
nearly 39,000, as compared with 35,500 during 1926.
The number of attendances has shown a marked increase each year since 1918,
and attendance at a welfare centre is now taken for granted by a large proportion
of the mothers of the Borough. If more centres were available a still larger proportion
of the mothers would attend.