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64
Twenty-eight of the children who had been attending at the
Day Nursery during 1937 discontinued attendance in the course of
the year. The various reasons for cessation of attendance were
as follows: 13 discontinued attending as the mother had ceased
going out to work, 5 ceased to attend as other arrangements had been
made for their care, 2 because the family had left the district, 2 were
admitted to institutions, and 6 had reached school age.
Of the 21 children attending at the end of 1937 4 were infants
under one year of age; 7 were between 1 and 3 years, making a total
of 11 under three years of age; 10 of the children in attendance were
between 3 and 5 years of age.
During March six children were excluded from the Day Nursery
on account of suspected whooping cough and one as a contact. In
the case of 4 of these children a diagnosis of whooping cough was
subsequently made; the remaining 2 were found not to be suffering
from that disease. The necessary notices of exclusion were issued
in respect of each of the cases, and home-visits were made by the
health visitors for the purpose of following-up the cases.
Exclusions from other infectious diseases were as follows:—Three
children were excluded as contacts of diphtheria, one child as a contact
of scarlet fever, and one child as a contact of chicken-pox. The last
mentioned child subsequently developed chicken-pox.
OPHTHALMIA NEONATORUM.
Only one case of ophthalmia neonatorum was notified during
1937. The confinement was attended by a medical practitioner with
a midwife acting as a maternity nurse. The disease commenced
on the seventh day after the birth. Institutional provision for the case
was not found necessary ; both eyes recovered without any impairment
of vision resulting.