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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.
One Clinic weekly at Clipstone House, on Thursday 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.
The number of new houses erected in the Borough during the year was 997, and when it is
realised that more than 1,300 houses have been erected yearly during the previous 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.
On the 27th October, 1932, it was necessary to start a fresh Clinic at Clipstone House to deal
with the new influx which was taking place at the west end of the town. This, although one was
told that it was impossible to run a morning Clinic8—that the mothers would not come and that it
would be a failure—proved to fill such a need that the attendances soon ran up to over one hundred,
and now another session is in prospect.
As I said last year, there can be no better testimonial for the work than the attendances at
the Isleworth Clinic, considering the circumstances under which the work has been done. The Committee
are trying to push on with a scheme for a temporary building that will relieve the congestion,
but on every hand the cry is " Economy, Economy." In the meantime we are doing the best under
the circumstances.
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 healthy 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.
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