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At most sessions of an infant welfare centre two health visitors are
in attendance, together with the medical officer and a number of voluntary
workers. Very frequent visits are encouraged while the baby is very
young, attendances at longer intervals as the child gets older. While some
mothers bring the child on a particular day only to have it weighed or
for her to obtain some food-stuff, most mothers are interviewed by the
health visitor who visits the district in which the mother resides. Each
session a certain number are interviewed by the medical officer, these
being either routine examinations, or because the mother desires it, or the
health visitor advises it in any particular case. Of some fifty infants
brought to a session, fifteen to twenty will be seen by the medical officer.
The centres are educational and advisory in function, and treatment
is not undertaken at the clinic, children suffering from any complaint
being referred to the general medical practitioner. On the other hand,
though every maternity and child welfare authority provides some form
oi treatment as part of its service, and children needing these restricted
classes of treatment are put into the way of receiving it.
Medicaments of various kinds are retailed at the clinic, some at cost
price, others at reduced prices. The bulk of these sales are of the proprietary
dried foods. Other items are dispensed in addition, the test
being that there is a sufficient demand to warrant the item being stocked,
and that it is possible to retail it at a cost appreciably lower than the price
charged by the pharmacists. These preparations are issued to any
patient only on the recommendation of the medical officer, and then only
in the quantities specified.
Clinic attendances occupy much of the time of the health visitor.
Every effort is made to try to ensure that the health visitor of the area,
from which are drawn the mothers from any particular locality, is present
at that session, and interviewing these mothers occupies her time entirely.
It is desirable that a skilled person should be present at the weighing,
not only to ensure the accuracy of the record, but perhaps, more important,
in that she has an opportunity of seeing the naked child. There is much
more work though at a clinic session, ensuring the flow of patients, the
keeping of registers, the obtaining of record cards, in addition to the sale
of the various medicaments. A session of any size would experience
difficulty in catering for those attending, if it were not for the help of the
voluntary workers.
Some of the infant welfare sessions are held at premises designed for
the purpose, and at most of these more than one weekly session is held.
The others are held mostly in church halls, at many of which just one
weekly session is held. At the end of the year, in all, 23 weekly infant
welfare sessions were being held in 14 separate premises.
The average weekly attendance at all the infant welfare centres was
1,170. The increase on the average for the previous year was attributable
to the better attendances in the second half of the year, an increase which
more than sufficed to counterbalance the lower average for the first six
months. The highest rate of attendance was for the six weeks period
ending the 6th October, when the average was 1,305. The lowest rate
was in the early months of the year, with an average of under 900.
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