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4
Four nurseries were opened during the year and steps had been taken
with a view to the erection of others. In order that the maximum
benefit in the way of freeing mothers to undertake war work might
follow on the opening of nurseries, it was decided that in selecting children
for admission preference should be given to those where the acceptance of
the one child would free the mother for full-time work. All nurseries
have, up to this, been filled with children in this category and at most
nurseries there is a waiting list of children fulfilling these requirements.
This has meant that not more than one child from any family has been
accepted ; nor have the children of mothers who find themselves in a
position to undertake part-time employment only. When, in the years
before the war, consideration was given to the question of establishing
nurseries, it was found that then there was not any large demand. Conditions
might well be very different after the war. Many more mothers,
doubtless, will continue to work, some from necessity, but many from
choice, and it is probable that the pre-war demand will not be a measure
of that which will occur after the war. On the other hand, because the
underlying reason then will be primarily the interests of the child rather
than the freeing of the mother to be in a position to accept employment,
so far from the position being that two or three children from one family
are not accepted, these will in post-war nurseries probably actually
be given preference. The nurseries to-day fall short of attaining their
object because so frequently the mother is required to remain at home
because the child is ailing, not necessarily of an infectious condition.
Provision of some residential accommodation possibly based not at each
nursery but available to serve a group of nurseries would help to meet
this difficulty which will be just as important in the post-war nurseries.
This accommodation would be useful, too, for the care of the nursery
children when their mothers for any reason were incapacitated.
Of the many requests for assistance received, the commonest fall into
two groups. To an increasing extent people are finding difficulty in
arranging for the care of the elderly. This is a big enough problem
when they are well, but the situation is much worse when they are incapacitated
by some ailment. Owing to the increasing demands made
on their accommodation for acute, including maternity, patients, those
nursing homes which formerly accepted the elderly as chronic patients
are no longer doing so. The other group, of course, is that of those who
wish other housing accommodation. Some of these are living in conditions
so cramped as even to be statutorily overcrowded ; some are still
in houses which have been condemned as being unfit for human habitation,
while others are in houses which, under ordinary conditions, would
have been represented for closure or demolition ; some families have to
live and sleep in the same room as a patient with open tuberculosis,
while some mothers with small children are confined to limited upstairs
accommodation.
Out of the last war was born to-day's very far-reaching and widely
embracing maternity and child welfare service. Out of this may evolve
changes of far greater importance and significance. Towards the end
of the year the Beveridge Report on social insurance was published.
One of the underlying principles recognises that want is only one of the