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76
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, still births, 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 700
Total visits 1,114
(b) To children under one year of age First visits 3,255
Total visits 8,415
(c) To children between the ages
of one and five years Total visits 10,246
INFANT WELFARE CENTRES.
At the beginning of the year, eighteen infant welfare sessions
were held at eleven separate premises. Early in the year an
additional session was opened at the Baptist Church Hall, Imperial
Drive and a third session at the Institute, Whitchurch Lane,
Stanmore. The arrangements at Pinner which were in operation
from the end of the previous year by which fortnightly sessions
were held at two separate buildings, did not prove satisfactory and
in place of these a weekly session has, since May, been held at the
Methodist Church, Love Lane, Pinner. The weekly session opened
at the Baptist Church Hall, Streatfield Road, Kenton, was soon
crowded, so in March an additional session was opened. Owing
to the shorter hours for which this building was available from the
time it has been used as a temporary school a further weekly session
proved necessary. The newly erected Methodist Church in Walton
Avenue proved to be suitable for clinic purposes, so in November
a weekly session was opened here and has proved a real convenience
to mothers who previously had to journey to more distant centres.
Towards the end of the year the session which had for long been
held at the Conservative Club, Lowlands Road, was transferred to
the Spiritualist Church Hall, Vaughan Road. At the end of the
year 23 weekly sessions were being held at 11 separate premises.
At these there was an average weekly attendance of about 1,400.
At most of the sessions two health visitors attend, the health visitor
in charge at any clinic being, as far as possible, the one who visits
the district which the clinic serves. In addition a number of
voluntary workers kindly assist at the clinics. A large proportion
of the time of each health visitor, therefore, is taken up by her
attendances at the clinics and restricts the extent of her home