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Public Health Department,
92 Bath Road,
HOUNSLOW.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Borough of Heston and Isleworth.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit my Annual Report for the year 1944. A
separate report has been submitted on the School Medical Service and as
has been the practice in recent years this Report consists largely of
a tabulated summary. Comment is submitted on certain aspects of the
work and vital statistics.
The upward trend of the birth rate has been maintained:
16.5 as compared with 16.3 in 1943 and 14.6 in 1942. The number of
illegitimate births was 85 as compared with 90 in 1943 and 59 in 1942.
Special attention has been given to the care of unmarried mothers and
illegitimate children. Efforts are made to contact the mother before
the birth of the child and to assist her, where necessary, in regard
to pre-natal care, arrangements for confinement and accommodation for
herself and the baby after the confinement. In these matters we
have had the co-operation of hospital almoners and moral welfare
workers. Contact was made in 60 cases and the final arrangements
were as follows:-
Mother and child living with father of the child 25
Mother and child living with grandparents 15
Mother and child living together (allowance from father) 1
Mother and child left the Borough 8
Child placed with foster-mother 1
Child placed for adoption 4
Child placed in residential nursery 1
Child in day nursery while mother at work 1
Child died in hospital 4
Where the mother and father are living together marriage is impossible
in most cases as one or other of the partners is already married. When
the mother and child leave the Borough and the address or district to
which they have gone is known the particulars are forwarded to the
Medical Officer of Health. In conjunction with the Middlesex County
Council arrangements have been made to provide, under the Public health
Act, pre-natal and post-natal residential accommodation. No cases
from the Borough were admitted during 1944.
The Adoption of Children (Regulation) Act, 1939 came into
force on 1st June, 1943, and is designed to ensure that as far as is
practicable the adoption of any infant shall be oarried out in a manner
most beneficial to the child and to prevent the trading In young
children by a third party whose sole object is to make money by this
traffic in young lives. Adoption Societies have to be registered and
must not practice for gain and all their activities are subject to
scrutiny. Under Section 7 of the Act it is the duty of any person
(other than the child's parents or guardian), who participate in the
arrangements for the placing of the child for adoption, to notify in
writing the welfare authority of the area in which the child is to be
placed. The number of such notifications received is not as high as
might-be expected and this is no doubt due to the purpose of the Act
not bfeing fully understood by doctors, mldwives, hospital matrons,
almoners, clergymen, moral welfare workers, etc. In 1944 Health
Visitors made visits of enquiry or supervision as under in connection
with dhildren placed for adoption :-
Visits in connection with notification of children placed
for adoption and to provide reports for use of the
oourt 136
Visits at request of adoption societies or others 15
Post-adoption visits at request of adoption societies
or others 11
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