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63
INFANT WELFARE SERVICES.
HOME VISITING BY THE HEALTH VISITORS.
Routine visits are paid to infants as soon as possible after the
fourteenth day, and special visits are paid to cases of ophthalmia
neonatorum, puerperal infection, stillbirths, infant deaths, etc.
Each Health Visitor is appointed Infant Protection Visitor for her
own area.
The following table shows the number of visits paid by the
Health Visitors during the year:—
(a) To expectant mothers First visits 492
Total visits 823
(b) To children under one year First visits 2,820
of age Total visits 5,487
(c) To children between the ages
of one and five years Total visits 4,979
INFANT WELFARE CENTRES.
At the beginning of the year, sixteen weekly sessions were held
at nine premises throughout the district. Towards the end of the
year the premises at the Baptist Church Hall, Streatfield Road,
Kenton, were opened to meet the very real need in this locality.
Better to serve the needs of the people in Pinner, the weekly session
held at the Free Church Hall, Paines Lane was replaced by fortnightly
sessions at St. Edmund's Church Hall, Rickmansworth
Road and the Pinner Club, Marsh Road. The foregoing and an
additional weekly session at the Baptist Church Hall, Imperial
Drive, resulted in there being at the end of the year eighteen
sessions weekly held at eleven separate premises. In addition,
special Toddlers' clinics, referred to later, were opened.
All the clinics are maintained by the Local Authority. At
most of them two health visitors are in attendance, but at some
there is only one health visitor and a nurse. During the year,
owing to the demands made on the time of the nurses of the local
district nursing association, approval was given to the engagement
of other trained nurses for the weighing of infants.
The Health Visitor in charge of any clinic is, as far as possible,
the one who visits the district which the clinic serves. A number
of voluntary workers kindly assist at each clinic.
The following table shows the work done at the infant welfare
centres during the year:
Total attendances at all Centres:—
(1) By children under one year of age 37,644
(2) By children between the ages of one and
five years 21,503