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78
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
The scheme is as follows:—
Three Clinics weekly at the Congregational Hall, Douglas
Road, Hounslow, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons.
Three Clinics weekly at the Public Hall, Isleworth, on Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday afternoons.
Two Clinics weekly at Heston Village Hall, one on Tuesday,
afternoons, and one on Friday mornings.
,At each of these Clinics infant consultations are carried out.
Babies and toddlers are regularly weighed. Dried milks, cod liver
oil emulsion, virol, etc., are on sale as directed by the Medical
Officer.
The Mothers can obtain a cup of tea and biscuits at a cost of 1d.
As reported last year the increase in the work is making things
extraordinarily difficult. The incessant influx of population and
economic circumstances are bringing more and more new mothers
anxious to obtain advice.
When it is realised that more than 1,300 houses have been
erected yearly during the last 7 years, it gives some index of the
growth of the district which, at the last Census (1931) was, out of
the whole County, fourth in the percentage of increase of population
over the previous census.
The condition at Isleworth is now extremely bad. The condition
of the waiting-room on the afternoons when the sessions are
being held is not a question of seeing, it is a question of smelling.
The gross overcrowding at many sessions was relieved to a certain
extent by the extra session, but the growth of the district in that
area has rendered that again of little avail to cope with the difficulty
and discomfort.
It speaks volumes for the value of the work and appreciation
of it, that mothers will put up with the conditions existing.