View report page

81
The application which has been made for new premises as a
Health Centre at Isleworth, has been tossed about between one
department and another with little sympathy for any expenditure,
and if I may say so, an inadequate appreciation of the difficulties
under which the work is being done, of the tremendous growth of
the district which is still going on, and of the fact that of the
total cost of the building, only a portion will be chargeable to this
work. Admitted at once, that the suggested building is not such as
one would put up if building afresh, but it is necessary to spend
a large amount on this building or else pull it down, to do which
would be criminal. The necessary expenditure with regard to the
structure of what is from a point of view of its site and structure,
an extraordinarily good building for the purposes for which we
require it, should be deducted from the gross amount which was
originally put up as the cost of the scheme.
No one desires under the present circumstances more than I
do, to curtail expenditure in every direction, but I believe that
good work in the Infant Welfare Clinics is a business proposition
from the point of view of the nation. The foundations of a healthly
childhood, are the only ones on which can be reared the sturdy
structure of a healthy adult life.
At the Isleworth end we have reached this position, that not
infrequently mothers put their heads inside the waiting room and
go away again, appalled at the crowd, the heat, and the smell.
It must be borne in mind also that amongst the Isleworth population,
the majority of which consists of poor families, the work
there is of greater importance in a way than in any other part
of the district.