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22
11a. Foot Clinic.—The Foot Clinic is apparently the second
Municipal Clinic to be set up in the country.
The authority for setting up the Walthamstow Clinic was
obtained under Section 131 of the Public Health. Act, 1875.
Suitable premises were available at 69, Hoe Street, which had
previously been acquired by your Council for the purpose of using
its forecourt for street widening purposes. The Foot Clinic suite is
situated on the ground floor of the house, which is situated in a main
street and on tramway and omnibus routes. Such ground floor
facilities and accessibility are essential.
The suite consists of a waiting-room which also accommodates
a lady clerk, a treatment room of three cubicles and a staff rest room.
The adaptation and redecoration of the premises amounted to £270
and included the erection of a platform along one side of the room
to take three ordinary heavy armchairs for patients, who are screened
from one another by wooden partitions. Suitable lighting on a
flexible arm, a cupboard and a sink, supplied with running hot and
cold water, are the only other essentials.
The equipment required for one chiropodist consisted of a
Tan-sad operating chair, an electric nail drill, an electric vibrator,
a heat lamp, an instrument table, and minor accessories. The total
cost was just over £20.
Staffing was considered both from the whole-time and parttime
aspect. The whole-time arrangement was finally adopted and
the Clinic was placed in charge of Miss Mary McCallum who trained
as a chiropodist at the Chelsea School and is, in addition, a trained
nurse and masseuse, both of which qualifications are of very great
value. A lady clerk was appointed on a part-time basis and her
duties are to record the names and addresses of patients attending,
to fill in simple treatment record cards, and to collect fees. A parttime
woman cleaner is also employed.
Ten weekly sessions of two and a half hours each are held and
after various trials these have been fixed on Monday, Tuesday,
Thursday and Friday afternoons and evenings and Wednesday and
Saturday mornings. The attendances have been found to vary
considerably on similar sessions in successive weeks.
The maximum number of patients treated by one chiropodist
should not exceed 10, which allows 15 minutes for each. During a
recent week, however, 121 patients were treated, but this number is
far more than it is fair to expect one chiropodist to treat and has
already, after only four months' experience, raised the question of
employing additional assistance.
Although only one chiropodist is at present employed the two
spare cubicles are frequently occupied by patients receiving foot
baths or radiant heat.