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14 Child Welfare.
and Nurse, Expectant mothers are also invited to come
for advice.
Three age groups of school children are inspected annually,
numbering well over 1,000.
Those found defective are treated at medical, dental, and eye
clinics regularly; those requiring surgical treatment are given
hospital tickets.
It is hoped that the age up to which children will be medically
supervised will shortly be increased from 14 to 18 years.
Fuller information on school work can be obtained by reference
to the Annual Report of the Medical Officer of the Surrey Education
Committee, Kingston, being the controlling body for
education in this district.
The Day Nursery (Voluntary Committee) takes care of
children, up to the age of five, whose mothers find it necessary to
go out to work. Details of their work are published in their first
Annual Report recently published.
The Education Authority and Mother and Child Welfare
Authority rent rooms from the Day Nursery Committee, and so
district, county, and voluntary work in connection with Child
Welfare are all conducted in one building.
The local Medical Officer of Health has medical supervision
over all three.
Now that the Surrey County Council has taken over the
control of the mother and child welfare work already well established
in the district, the duty of providing medical and other
assistance for necessitous and complicated cases of pregnancy and
parturition devolves upon them.
There are no hospitals for women and children in the district.
The only way the District Council can help (and this has been
done) is to provide beds for Puerperal Fever, and to admit certain
cases of Infective Diarrhoea in children.
Owing to the present congested state of our large Metropolitan
and County Hospitals and to the depletion of their staffs, it is
impossible to get beds for children needing medical care as opposed
to surgical operations.